Longitudinal dyadic interplay between marital conflict and psychological well-being in couples: The moderating roles of Wives' employment

Abstract

This study examined longitudinal dyadic and within-partner associations among self-esteem, subjective happiness, and marital conflict in married couples, with a possible moderating role of wives' employment status. Data were analyzed from the Panel Study on Korean Children, nationwide longitudinal data. The study sample included 1668 married couples (N = 3336 participants) where both partners provided separate data annually across three waves. Husbands' and wives' mean ages at T1 were 39.3 and 36.8 years, respectively. For both partners, self-esteem and subjective happiness were related bidirectionally at an individual level. Wives' marital conflict was linked to husbands' subsequent marital conflict and vice versa. Wives played a greater role in their husbands’ self-esteem than vice versa. Findings suggest that wives tend to be their husband's substantial source of perceived psychological well-being than the reverse; however, the benefit of psychological well-being is likely to be lower for husbands of stay-at-home wives.