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Marital quality over the life course and child well-being from childhood to early adolescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2021

Spencer L. James Open the ORCID record for Spencer L. James [Opens in a new window] ,
David A. Nelson ,
McKell A. Jorgensen-Wells  and
Danielle Calder
Spencer L. James*
Affiliation:
School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
David A. Nelson
Affiliation:
School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
McKell A. Jorgensen-Wells
Affiliation:
School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
Danielle Calder
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA Montecatini Eating Disorder Treatment Center, Carlsbad, CA, USA
*
Author for Correspondence: Spencer James, 2095 JFSB, Provo, UT, USA, 84606; E-mail: spencer_james@byu.edu
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Abstract

Research on marital quality and child well-being is currently limited by its common use of geographically constrained, homogenous, and often cross-sectional (or at least temporally limited) samples. We build upon previous work showing multiple trajectories of marital quality and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (NLSY79) regarding mothers and their children (inclusive of ages 5–14). We examine how indicators of child well-being are linked to parental trajectories of marital quality (happiness, communication, and conflict). Results showed children whose parents had consistently poor marital quality over the life course exhibited more internalizing and externalizing problems, poorer health, lower quality home environments, and lower math and vocabulary scores than children of parents in consistently higher-quality marriages. Group differences remained stable over time for child health, home environment, and vocabulary scores. Group differences for internalizing problems declined over time, whereas group differences increased for externalizing problems and math scores. Initial advantages for females across nearly all indicators of child well-being tended to shrink over time, with boys often moving slightly ahead by mid adolescence. We discuss the implications of these findings in regard to children's development and well-being and suggest treating marriage as a monolithic construct betrays important variation within marriage itself.

Keywords

child healthchild well-beinginternalizing/externalizing behaviorsmarital qualitymultilevel linear modeling
Type
Regular Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 1492 - 1505
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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