Marital Instability Over the Life Course Series

The Marital Instability Over the Life Course series is a nationwide longitudinal study of marital instability, which was begun in 1980 with initial funding from the Social Security Administration's Office of Research and Statistics. The series was also partly funded by the National Institute on Aging. The purpose of the series was to identify the causes of marital instability throughout the life course. Measures were developed to predict marital instability and divorce and to assess marital quality. Five waves of data were collected between 1980 and 1997 from married individuals between the ages of 18 and 55. Data are furnished on female labor force participation and life course perspective and the effects on marriage and marital instability. Initially, the investigators gave considerable attention to female labor force participation as it relates to marital dissolution and divorce proneness (Wave 1). However, the investigators drew heavily on a life course perspective to guide their investigation subsequently. Because the goal of the study was to investigate the role of a wide variety of factors that may affect divorce, questions and scales were designed to cover numerous topics. The investigators were interested in directly linking changes in a range of independent variables such as economic resources, wife's employment, presence of children, marital satisfaction, life goals, and health, to divorce, permanent separation, and other actions intended to dissolve a marriage (Wave II). Wave III further examined the impact of changes in employment, economics, and health on marital relationships. A fourth wave of data was collected in 1992 to further look at changes in employment, economics, and health. Wave 5, collected in 1997, examined the relationship between marital quality and stability and changes in marital quality later in life.