Marital Instability Over the Life Course
Overview
The Marital Instability Over the Life Course Study, also referred to as the Work and Family Life Study, is one of the longest running national studies of marriage in existence, and the only one with detailed information on marital quality and interaction. The study comprises six waves of data spanning 20 years.
History
To examine the causes of marital instability throughout the life course, six waves of data were collected between 1980 and 2000 from married individuals who were between the ages of 18 and 55 in 1980.
Information collected in 1980 (Wave I) focused on the effects of wives' participation in the labor force on marriage and marital instability. Measures predicting marital instability and divorce and assessing marital quality were developed. Variables include information on earnings, commitment to work, hours worked, and occupational status.
The focus of Wave II, conducted in 1983, was to link changes in factors such as economic resources, wife's employment, presence of children, marital satisfaction, life goals, and health to actions intended to dissolve a marriage, such as divorce and permanent separation. Information on adjustment to marital dissolution, relationship with in-laws, size of home, parents' employment, use of free time, club membership, child-care arrangements, and responsibility for chores was gathered.
Wave III, collected in 1988, further examined the impact of changes in employment, economics, and health on marital relationships. Questions were asked about divorce and remarriage, investment of energy and resource use in the care of aging parents and dependent offspring, asset value, awareness of aging, mental health issues, and history of disease.
In 1992, a fourth wave of data was collected to look at changes in employment, economics, and health. Questions were asked about retirement issues, family structure, and the impact of caring for aging parents while at the same time caring for dependent offspring. Data were also collected in 1992 and 1994 from adult offspring who were living in the household in 1980 and had reached age 19 by 1992, thus providing parallel measures with their parents regarding the quality of parent-child relationships, attitudes, and support along with exploring the impact of childhood experiences on the transition to adult life.
Wave V data was collected in 1997. It included a fifth interview with the original sample, a second interview with offspring, and first interviews with offspring who have reached maturity since 1992.
The study concluded with Wave VI. Collected in 2000, this wave included an expanded health measures section as well as a new cross section which will facilitate tracking of changes over the last 20 years. Also in 2000, another cross section was collected in the same way and with the same questions used in 1980. The analysis of that data was the basis for the book Alone Together (2007, Harvard University Press).
To learn more about gaining access to this data, please see our page on this topic. Please address all correspondence to Tara Murray.
Last modified: 09/04/08 | Contact Webmaster
