Korean Middle-aged Couples' Gender Role Attitudes and Marital Satisfaction: Actor, Partner, and Similarity Effects

Abstract

This study investigates an actor, a partner, and a similarity effect on the association between husbands and wives' gender role attitudes and marital satisfaction, using a modified Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Instead of an individualistic approach, the present study took a dyadic and couple-level approach by using a couple-level measure, such as a couple similarity, as well as husbands' and wives' individual gender role attitudes scores. Research questions are as follows: 1. How husbands' and wives' gender role attitudes are associated with their own marital satisfaction? (an actor effect) 2. How husbands' and wives' gender role attitudes are associated with their partners' marital satisfaction? (a partner effect) 3. How husbands' and wives' similarity on gender role attitudes are associated with their marital satisfaction? (a similarity effect) Data from <Korean Baby Boomer Panel Study 2nd wave (2012) > and <Korean Pre-elderly Panel Study 1st wave (2012) > (Principal Investigator: Dr. Gyounghae Han) were used and 1,198 married couples in their first marriage were selected as a sample of this study. Data were analyzed using SPSS 24.0 for descriptive statistics, paired t-test and mixed effects regression analysis. Main results are as follows: First, wives had significantly higher egalitarian gender role attitudes than her husband and was significantly less satisfied with their marriage. Second, when a wife had higher egalitarian gender role attitudes, a wife herself and her husband was less satisfied with their marriage. Third, both similarity measures, absolute difference score and profile similarity correlation, were not relevant to husbands' and wives' marital satisfaction. In conclusion, couple similarity did not play a dominant role in marital satisfaction. If a wife had egalitarian view, no matter her husband had egalitarian or traditional gender role attitudes, both wife and husband were less happy in their marriage. Korean cultural and societal situations with non-egalitarian gender division seems to play an important role to the association between husbands' and wives' gender role attitudes and their own and their partners' marital satisfaction.