Husbands' Generosity as a Predictor of African American and White Women's Marital Quality through the Transition to Parenthood

Background and Purpose

Because some developmental theories give the transition to parenthood a unique place in the family life cycle, understanding this transition is vital to social workers' interventions with women or couples entering this stage of development. A vast literature on married couples who transition to parenthood generally reveals that marital quality declines during this developmental period, especially for women. However, little research has investigated African American women with respect to parenthood transition. Using a sample with a strong representation of African American couples, the purpose of this investigation was to determine if a wife's perception of her husband's generosity toward her (e.g. she felt he was especially caring) would predict the wife's marital quality after the transition to parenthood.

Methods

A longitudinal, secondary data analysis was used to investigate respondents from the first (1986) and third (1988) waves of the Early Years of Marriage Project. Wave 1 (N=373) included all eligible African American couples (n=199) and a random sample of White couples (n=174), who applied for marriage licenses in Wayne County, Michigan. This analysis, based on remaining couples in wave 3, includes 113 African-American and 133 Caucasian women (N=246). Sixty-six women (35 Caucasian and 31 African American) reported having a baby during the year prior to wave 3. One-hundred eighty women (98 Caucasian, 82 African American) who did not become parents during that year served as a control group.

Results

OLS hierarchical regression was used to investigate the effects of background characteristics (including race), wave 1 marital quality, transition to parenthood, generosity at wave 3, and the interaction of generosity and transition to parenthood on wave 3 marital quality. In the final model, the best predictor of marital quality was wives' ratings of their husband's generosity (b=.447, p<.001). Wives' first year marital quality (b=.148) and race (b=.110) were also significant predictors (p<.05); African American women reported significantly lower wave 3 marital quality than White women. Women who reported having a baby the previous year did not show significant changes in marital quality. Similarly, there was no interaction effect of husband's generosity and transition to parenthood on marital quality.

Conclusions and Implications

The results of this study suggest that marital quality was not eroded by the transition to parenthood for these women. Still, given the literature suggestive of marital quality declines for women during parenthood transition, it behooves social workers to be aware of this potential difficulty. Furthermore, African American women reported lower marital quality scores in this study; social workers should be aware of this potential vulnerability for African American women. Finally, husbands' generosity clearly contributed to wives' marital quality in this sample. Social workers who counsel couples should consider the husband's generosity as a potential strength to sustain or improve wives' marital quality. Future research should attempt to use larger sample sizes and greater representation of African Americans, while also considering co-habitating couples and single women transitioning to parenthood.