Examined postdivorce relationships between ex-spouses, using survey data from 265 respondents from couples who had been divorced for 2 to 2.5 years. One-half of respondents had at least monthly contact with ex-spouses; contact was friendlier and quarreling less frequent for those without children than for those with children. (Author/ABL)

Investigated perceptions held by childfree married males and females who were in their childbearing years of the costs and benefits of having children, using national survey data. Found childfree males were more pronatalistic than females: husbands rated general importance of having children greater than wives, and they were more apt to want to…

Describes Family Employment Program (FEP), program initiated in 1987 by Oregon State University to meet needs of dual-career couples. Describes origins and development of FEP and discusses FEP goals and organization and how program works. Three couple client profiles are included. (NB)

Used computerized marriage assessment tool to analyze data from 8,385 couples across 9 dimensions of their marriages. Identified seven marriage types: devitalized couples, financially focused couples, conflicted couples, traditional couples, balanced couples, harmonious couples, and vitalized couples. Multidimensional profiles can be described in…

Assessed how work as family professional is uniquely enhancing and stressful and whether enhancers and stressors are correlated with marital and family quality. Findings from 59 family professionals and their spouses strengthen idea that there are marital and family life enhancers and stressors uniquely associated with work as family professional.…

Results from study of 287 married women indicated that egalitarian and full-time employed wives perceived less support from their husbands when domestic labor arrangements were more unequal. Wives who perceived less support in turn experienced lower marital and personal happiness compared to wives with more equal household labor arrangements.…

Investigates whether financial agreements between husbands and wives, cost of child care, mothers' wages, and sources of income, rather than aggregate income, affect a mother's decision to use child care. Results show that for working mothers, the price of child care is what matters, not their wages; for nonemployed mothers, the reverse is true.…

Suggests "Woman Under the Influence" is an excellent film for teaching key concepts in family communication. Explains systems theory as it applies to transactions within the family. Extends the theory to the analysis of the spousal relationship in the film from the perspective of interactional communication, dramatically illustrating the…

The authors describe how 3 groups of family caregivers (spouses, daughters, and sons) are affected by the caregiving role. In addition, clinical considerations and interventions for mental health professionals working with these different groups of family caregivers are discussed. A clinical case example is also presented. (Contains 2 tables.)

Observational studies suggest that including men in reproductive health interventions can enhance positive health outcomes. A randomized controlled trial was designed to test the impact of involving male partners in antenatal health education on maternal health care utilization and birth preparedness in urban Nepal. In total, 442 women seeking…

African American/White interracial couples are a rapidly growing segment of the population. However, little is known about factors related to marital quality for these couples. The authors examine the relationships between sex role ideology, perception of relationship unfairness, and marital quality among a sample of 76 married African…

Using the General Social Survey on Social Engagement conducted by Statistics Canada in 2003, this paper examines social capital derived from informal networks and its variation among men categorized as: (1) men with no children, and (2) men living with children in (a) intact, (b) step, and (c) lone parent families. The focus on men stems from a…

We examined the association between work-related stress of both spouses and daily fluctuations in their affective states and dyadic closeness. Daily diary data from 169 Israeli dual-earner couples were analyzed using multilevel modeling. The findings indicate that work stress has no direct effect on dyadic closeness but rather is mediated by the…

Many couples suffer a decline in marital satisfaction over the transition to parenthood. Previous research indicated that a couple's relational efficacy (a measure of a couple's belief in their ability to solve problems) before the birth of their first child was one of the strongest predictors of their marital satisfaction after the birth. This…

This document presents a theoretical approach to couple counseling, a systemic approach which views each spouse as having a personal and relationship history that transcends the present marital one. It notes that this approach views a person's life style along two dimensions: the first dimension examines the person's relational experiences at the…