Investigated relationship between drug use and sexual activity prior to age 16 using data from 2 youngest birth cohorts (N=2,711) from National Longitudinal Survey of Young Adults. When other important risk factors were controlled, reported prior use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs greatly increased the risk of early…

Tested two hypotheses relative to duration of marriage in 11,559 divorcing families in northern California. Confirmed that the presence of children is associated with longer marriage duration but not that the presence of children younger than age two was associated with longer marital duration. (NRB)

Investigated the relationship between cohabitation and subsequent marital quality in 309 recently married couples. Results showed that having cohabited premaritally was associated with significantly lower perceived quality of communication for wives and significantly lower marital satisfaction for both spouses. (LLL)

Much analysis of the correlates of divorce fails to take into account the time dependency of this event with respect to marital duration. This paper focuses explicitly on the relationship between independent variables and the timing of divorce. Results indicated a perceptual problem model better describes the relationship between various variables…

Examined determinants of receipt of child support using data from national survey which included ever-divorced mothers (n=673). Results indicated receipt of child support was mostly dependent upon circumstances of fathers (income, marital status, physical proximity, and whether he visited his children). Circumstances of mothers and children had no…

Examined the amount of time women (N=199) took to progress from making a decision to divorce to the filing of a petition for divorce. Results indicated a wide time range, with age at marriage, number of years married, and who had been most in favor of divorce making independent and significant contributions to the prediction. (Author/BL)

Compared reasons given by divorced men and women (N=335) for the failure of their marriages. Structural and demographic variables, including sex, socioeconomic status, religion, age at marriage, parental approval, duration, number of children, and premarital acquaintance were mentioned. Results suggested that different types of marriage breakdown…

Used data from two National Surveys of Family Growth (N=14,000) to estimate the fertility of married couples by religious group. Results are presented in terms of religious and racial differences, controlling for age, education and residence, and indicate that religious affiliation continues to be an indispensable datum. (JAC)

Determined if factors descriptive of work-family role integration would be more predictive of rural employed mothers' life satisfaction than that of urban employed mothers (N=237). Results supported the greater importance of variables descriptive of work-family role integration in predicting the life satisfaction of rural employed mothers.…

Examines the age-at-marriage/marital instability relationship in a national sample (N=1,715). Results suggested that the relationship could be largely explained by inadequate role performance, though the specific inadequacies in performance differed somewhat for the early and later marrieds. (NRB)

Tested causal models predicting unmarried adolescent pregnancy using data from 2,158 young adults. Among the males, having a girlfriend become pregnant is associated with school difficulties, low parental socioeconomic status, and high popularity. Among females, pregnancy risk is related to race, low socioeconomic status, father absence, number of…

Examined factors influencing the decisions of 251 battered women to leave their partners. Results showed women who left had had shorter relationships and were more likely employed and non-White. Women who stayed with their assailants cited love, economic hardship, and belief the abuser would change as reasons. (JAC)

Examined the congruence between marital partners' perceptions, metaperceptions, and meta-metaperceptions, as well as the impact of this congruence on communicative satisfaction, in 50 couples. The data indicated high levels of agreement, understanding, feeling understood, realization, and communicative satisfaction in the couples and no…

Examined relationships between self-disclosure and marital satisfaction in 50 couples. On self-report measures, husbands' disclosure to wives was positively related to and predictive of husbands' marital satisfaction. Wives' disclosure to husbands was a predictor of husbands' marital satisfaction and positively related to and predictive of wives'…

Notes the inconsistent findings that characterize research on marital instability and proposes several potential methodological sources of these inconsistencies. Presents an illustrative application to data from two recent national representative probability samples. (JAC)