Marital Conflict in Older Couples: Positivity, Personality, and Health.
We examine the implications of health and personality characteristics for late-life marital conflict, using data from the 2010-11 wave of the National Social Life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative study with data on both partners in 955 marital and cohabitational dyads. Using these data, we relate characteristics of husbands to characteristics of their wives, and vice versa. Wives with husbands in fair or poor physical health are more likely to report high levels of marital conflict, but the reverse is not true. Similarly, wives report more conflict when their husbands are high on Neuroticism, high on Extraversion, and low on a new measure we call Positivity. Our findings point to noteworthy gender differences between men and women in the associations between individual characteristics and levels of marital conflict. We point to differences between husbands' and wives' marital roles as a contributor to these differences.
University of Chicago, Department of Sociology, 1126 East 59 Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
James
J
Iveniuk
University of Chicago, Department of Sociology, 1126 East 59 Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
Linda J
LJ
Waite
University of Chicago, Department of Psychology, 940 East 57 Street, Room 329, Chicago, IL 60637.
Martha K
MK
McClintock
NORC, University of Chicago, 1155 East 60 Street, 266-23, Chicago, IL 60637.
Andrew D
AD
Teidt
Conflict; Families in middle and later life; Health; Marriage; Personality; Survey research