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David Fein (david_fein@abtassoc.com)
is Senior Associate at Abt Associates Inc. He gratefully acknowledges the
contribution of unpublished analyses from Paul Amato.
The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation is being conducted
by MDRC and its research partners, Abt Associates, Child Trends, and Optimal
Solutions Group, under contract to the Office of Planning, Research
and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. For further information please contact: Virginia
Knox (virginia_knox@mdrc.org),
Project Director, MDRC.
The prisms social scientists have used to study marriage mostly have not been
focused on the lower end of the economic spectrum. There has been considerable
attention to racial and ethnic minorities and, more recently, to relationships
among unwed parents. Although these populations are disproportionately poor,
their distinctive attitudes and behaviors could reflect many influences other
than economic status. Many analyses of marriage outcomes in the general population
have included economic indicators as covariates. Very few, however, have examined
carefully the effects of economic or other causal variables among the most disadvantaged
sample members (Fein, 2003; Fein et al., 2003).
Emerging federal initiatives seeking to support marriage have increased the
need for improved information on low-income married couples. These needs begin
with basic descriptive statistics. Research on fragile families has demonstrated
that simple facts can be very useful in stimulating thinking about interventions
for couples. For example, the finding that a substantial majority of unwed couples
are involved romantically around the time of birth but most of these relationships
do not survive long after birth has stimulated interest in transition to parenthood
programs (Dion et al., 2003). A similar body of descriptive evidence on low-income
married couples is needed to support thinking about the broad population of
interest, subgroups that might be particularly important to target, and the
kinds of services and policy changes that may be most helpful.
One key need is to document the degree to which marriage outcomes vary across
different forms and levels of economic disadvantage. Next, we must ascertain
how different individual, family, and environmental characteristics of disadvantaged
couples are associated with marriage outcomes. Beyond simple measures like marital
satisfaction, it will be useful to assess how more specific aspects of marital
interaction and related psychological processes — the proximate targets
of relationship skills programs — vary across groups. Needed are analyses both
of variation in outcomes at a point in time, as well as of changes in outcomes
for a population over time.
This paper starts the enterprise by assembling and assessing recent descriptive
statistics on the formation and stability, characteristics, and quality of marriages
in the low-income population of the U.S. In addition to culling findings from
published reports, it also provides new findings from several recent surveys.
Research Questions and Data Sources
Although the questions this paper
explores are basic, their answers are neither well nor widely known: Are
economically disadvantaged persons less likely to marry and to stay married?
How different are poor married couples’ social and economic characteristics
compared with those of more affluent couples? Are the numbers of married
couples using government assistance programs very large? To what degree does
marital quality tend to differ for less and more affluent couples? Do the
answers to questions like these depend on how we measure economic disadvantage?
The concept of economic disadvantage
has multiple dimensions, encompassing temporary and enduring aspects of current
material circumstances (e.g., low family income, financial stress, economic
dependency, crime-ridden neighborhood) as well as factors likely to affect
future prospects (e.g., low education, disability, lack of health insurance,
poor local job market). Some aspects of disadvantage may operate through
individual- or couple-level characteristics (e.g., growing up in a family
headed by a single parent with low education, low current family income),
while others operate through neighborhood-level characteristics (e.g., few
married couples in the community to serve as role models). Within any single
dimension, where to draw the line between “disadvantaged” and “non-disadvantaged”
may not be clear.
In this paper, we explore the implications
of several different measures of disadvantage. We emphasize also the need
to distinguish clearly the concept of economic disadvantage from that of membership
in a racial/ethnic minority group. There are many reasons why racial and
ethnic differences in marriage are important to understand, but such differences
should not be attributed automatically to economic disadvantage.
[1]
As mentioned, this paper assembles findings from published
reports, as well as from new tabulations of data from the CPS and two surveys
of married couples. A large, high-quality survey, the CPS offers rich detail
on demographic and economic characteristics. The March 2003 CPS sample included
70 thousand married adults aged 18-59, representing 89 million married adults
nationwide. The March CPS contains little information about these couples’
marriages, however.
For information on marital quality, we draw on special analyses prepared by
Paul Amato based on pooled data from two surveys of married adults nationwide
— the 1980 Marital Instability Over the Life Course Survey and 2000 Survey of
Marriage and Family Life. These two surveys covered a wide range of topics bearing
on marriage and family life (Amato et al., 2003). Their samples — 2,034
and 2,100 persons, respectively — are representative of the population
of married adults aged 55 and under in the 48 contiguous states.
Findings
The following sections provide a
basic profile of the population of economically disadvantaged married couples.
We look first at rates of entry into, and exit from, first marriage. Next,
we examine the timing of transitions to parenthood in relation to marriage.
A series of analyses then document how basic socio-economic characteristics
of married couples vary by income level and, among low-income couples, by
race and ethnicity. Finally, we assess evidence on whether and how marital
quality varies across couple income levels.
- People with economic disadvantages are just as likely to marry as other
people, but their marriages are substantially more unstable.
Characterizing the situation as one of “not as much marriage”
among disadvantaged people misses an important distinction. Tying the knot
does not seem to be an issue: rather, the problem appears to be maintaining
the union thereafter. Statistics from the 1995 National Survey of Family
Growth (NSFG), as reported by Bramlett and Mosher (2002), demonstrate this
distinction for a variety of individual and community-level indicators of
disadvantage.
Through their early 30s, economically disadvantaged adults actually are more
likely to marry than advantaged adults. The proportions ever married by age
are shown in Exhibit 1 by education (top panel) and
neighborhood income level (bottom panel). Fractions ever married are much higher
among women with no more than a high school degree in the young adult years,
but begin to narrow by age 30. By age 35, other statistics show that the fractions
ever married are virtually the same across education groups (Ellwood and Jencks
2001, Tables A11-13). A similar story appears in comparisons by neighborhood
income level (Exhibit 1, bottom panel). Through their 30s, women from the most
affluent neighborhoods (e.g., in the upper 25 percent of median family incomes)
are less likely than those from less affluent neighborhoods to have married.
The differences here are somewhat narrower than for education while women are
in their 20s, likely because education provides a direct indication of marriage
postponement for the sake of college and career.
Looking at Exhibit 2, we see that at every level
of education, blacks are substantially less likely to marry than whites or Hispanics.
This finding reinforces the warning that differences across race — ethnicity
groups may not be informative about differences based on economic status.
In contrast to getting married, the difficulty of staying married increases
substantially with levels of economic disadvantage. The probability of splitting
up in each year after first marriage is consistently higher for women with less,
than for those with more, education (Exhibit 3, top
panel) and for those from less, compared with more, affluent neighborhoods (bottom
panel). The effect of neighborhood income level is especially large. For example,
the probability of breaking up within 10 years of marriage is nearly twice as
high for women from the bottom quarter (44 percent break-up) as for those from
the top quarter (23 percent break-up) of neighborhoods ranked by median family
income.
At every level of education, black women have the highest risks of marital disruption
over the 15 years after they first marry (Exhibit 4).
In contrast, disruption rates for married Hispanic women are relatively low,
particularly at low levels of education. Community-level indicators of economic
disadvantage show generally similar patterns.
The fragility of marriages among
disadvantaged couples is one strong rationale for efforts to strengthen marriage
in low-income populations. The statistics indicate also the possible benefits
of targeting black married couples and couples who are relatively young, since
both are at higher risk of breaking up. Although substantial, it is worth
noting that the evidence on risks of early marriage is based on analyses of
general population samples (Bumpass et al., 1991; Heaton, 2003), and we do
not know how much greater the risks are for disadvantaged couples who marry
young.
- Whereas the vast bulk of first transitions to parenthood among upper
middle class couples follow first marriages, first births among disadvantaged
newlyweds are far more likely to precede marriage.
There is substantial interest in
targeting marriage interventions around the point that couples have their
first child, a time of both optimism and strain when couples may be especially
receptive to marriage education services (Cowan and Cowan 1995, Dion et al.,
2003). In this regard, a useful piece of information is that a substantial
fraction of disadvantaged first-time newlyweds already have children.
Ellwood and Jencks analyzed CPS data on the timing of women’s first births relative
to first marriages in successive marriage cohorts after dividing each cohort
into thirds based on its level of education. Among couples who married in 1990,
one-third of those in the bottom education category had their first child before
marriage, compared with one-tenth of those in the top education category (Exhibit
5). Among African Americans, the fraction is even higher: over half (51
percent) married after their first transition to parenthood. [2]
Thus, programs targeting only marital
first transitions to parenthood will exclude a substantial number of newlyweds. One response is to target such couples before marriage, and there currently
is a great deal of interest in programs that do just that. Alternatively,
it might be helpful to target couples who are already parents at marriage
on the basis of subsequent (marital) births, as well as on other developmental
milestones (e.g., children reaching school age or puberty).
Many premarital transitions to parenthood occur more than
three years before marriage: 55 percent of premarital first births in the
bottom educational third, and 82 percent of premarital first births to African
Americans. These earlier births are more likely to have been fathered by
a partner prior to the current spouse. Statistics from a recent Florida survey
confirm that low-income married couples are more likely to be living with
children from prior relationships. Nearly half (49 percent) of low-income
(under 200 percent of poverty) married couples with children were living with
at least one child from a prior relationship, compared with 31 percent of
couples with incomes of at least 400 percent of poverty (Karney et al. , 2003,
Table 5).
The fact that at least one spouse often has children from
prior (unmarried) partners suggests that relationships with prior partners
around parenting are likely to be more salient for low-income married couples.
Thus issues concerning relationships with prior partners and stresses associated
with step parenting are important subjects for marriage programs for disadvantaged
newlyweds. Research on unwed parents, among whom rates of multiple partner
fertility are even higher (Carlson and Furstenberg, 2003, Tables 4-6), has
inspired similar recommendations.
The pace of fertility after marriage also is more rapid among less well-educated
women. Over half (53 percent) of women in the lowest education category who
married before having their first child had a birth within the next three years,
compared with 41 percent in the top category (calculated from percentages in
Exhibit 5). It is likely that unplanned and premarital
conceptions partly account for somewhat greater pace of childbearing. One of
the better established findings in the academic literature is that premarital
conceptions and births substantially increase the risk of subsequent marital
disruption (Upchurch et al., 2001).
Notwithstanding their faster pace of fertility, a substantial fraction of women
in the bottom education category (43 percent of women childless at marriage)
did not have their first birth until at least three years after marriage (Exhibit
5). An implication is that programs targeting newlyweds will include many
couples who do not have children for a substantial period after they receive
services.
- Disadvantaged married couples are comparatively young and disproportionately
Latino. African Americans constitute a relatively small share of this population.
CPS tabulations reveal a number
of important differences in the characteristics of married couples at different
ends of the economic spectrum. We look first at basic demographic characteristics
of couples who were poor, or near-poor, compared with more affluent families.
Of all U.S. married women in March 2003, 2.5 million (5 percent) were poor,
and eight million (17 percent) had family incomes below 200 percent of poverty.
[3] Low-income married women are substantially younger than their
middle- and higher-income counterparts. Among married women, 47 percent of those
who were poor were still in their prime childbearing ages (under 35), compared
with only 18 percent of those with incomes at least six times above poverty
(see Exhibit 6). The fractions with children under
age six in these two income groups were 42 and 14 percent, respectively.
There are several reasons why low-income
married adults tend to be younger than more affluent couples. One reason
is that, as shown in Exhibits 1-4, poor people marry at younger ages and have
shorter marriages. A second reason is that the age distribution of poor populations
tends to be younger due to higher fertility rates compared with more affluent
groups. A third reason is that young couples are at earlier stages in their
careers and tend to have lower average earnings than older couples.
One of the more striking findings
in this analysis is the high proportion of Latinos among low-income couples. Over one-third (35 percent) of poor married couples are Hispanic, less than
half (47 percent) are non-Hispanic white, and only one-tenth are non-Hispanic
black. Latinos’ disproportionate representation among poor married couples
is due to the fact that—as shown earlier—they are relatively likely both to
marry and stay married, as well as to be poor in the first place. By weight
of numbers, Latino couples appear to deserve substantial attention in marriage-strengthening
initiatives and related research.
African Americans are far less prominent
among low-income married couples than among new unwed parents. In large cities
covered in the 1999 Fragile Families baseline survey, blacks accounted for
44 percent of births to unwed parents, but only 13 percent of births to married
parents (McLanahan, 2003).
Priority target groups for marriage services must be established
on the basis of need and ability to benefit from services, however, as well
as numbers. In this regard, married African Americans deserve a prominent
spot on the marriage agenda, due to their high risk of marital disruption.
- Low-income married couples have substantially lower levels of education
and employment than higher-income couples.
With good-paying jobs increasingly requiring advanced education, it is little
surprise to find that education is highly correlated with income among married
couples. Among poor husbands, 41 percent have no high school diploma, and only
27 percent have some education beyond high school (Exhibit
6). The corresponding statistics for the most affluent husbands are 2 percent
and 82 percent, respectively. Education distributions for wives show very similar
income differences.
Among poor couples, only 51 percent
of husbands and 14 percent of wives hold full-time jobs, compared with 92
and 66 percent of husbands and wives, respectively, in the top income category. Together, poor husbands and wives averaged only 33.5 hours of work per week,
compared with 72.6 hours for couples in the most affluent group.
Low education and employment levels
are important to consider in designing marriage programs. Some adaptation
is likely to be needed in marriage skills curricula developed for well-educated,
middle-class couples in order to be appropriate for populations with low levels
of literacy and experience in formal classroom settings. It may be helpful
to add material on how couples can recognize and respond constructively to
economic stresses that may affect their relationships. Finally, employment
services and related supports could prove valuable in reducing economic worries
so that couples can focus on improving their relationships.
- Millions of married couples use a wide variety of government assistance
programs.
Notwithstanding the popular view of public assistance recipients as single-parent
families, a great many married couples also receive government aid. Among all
recipients, the share married ranges from 13 percent for rent subsidies to 66
percent for workers compensation benefits (see Exhibit
7, top panel). [4] Married
women accounted for about one-fifth of all women who received TANF and food
stamps and nearly half (46 percent) of all women with a family member registered
for Medicaid. Of the fourteen programs shown in Exhibit
7, seven served over a million married couples.
In addition to providing valuable
supports to married couples and their families, these programs represent potential
avenues for providing marriage and family strengthening services to married
couples. The varying rules and services of different programs suggest possibilities
for reaching families with varying socioeconomic characteristics and needs,
as well as for integrating marriage education services with an array of other
services.
- The characteristics of major racial and ethnic groups within the low-income
married population vary by age, age of youngest child, education, region of
the U.S., and urban-rural residence.
Racial and ethnic differences in characteristics may have implications for
targeting, recruitment, and service strategies. Exhibit
8 compares the characteristics of white, black, and Hispanic married couples
with annual family incomes under 200 percent of poverty. The statistics correspond
to estimated total populations of 4.1, .8, and 2.5 million non-Hispanic white,
non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic married couples, respectively.
Latinos are especially likely to be recent parents. Half (51 percent) of all
low-income married Latino couples have young children, compared with 37 and
34 percent of whites and blacks, respectively. Latinos constitute 40 percent
of all low-income married parents with children under age six (not shown in
exhibit).
Disadvantaged Latino couples also have especially low levels of formal education.
Three in five husbands lack a high school degree, compared with only one in
five white and black husbands. Only 14 percent of Latino husbands have some
education beyond the high school level, compared with 37 and 34 percent of
low-income white and black husbands, respectively. Statistics for wives’ education
are very similar.
Notwithstanding their low education levels, Latino husbands are substantially
more likely to be working full-time (74 percent) than either white (62 percent)
or black (55 percent) husbands. Among low-income husbands, fewer than one
in five (17 percent) Latinos is not working, compared with 30 percent of whites
and 35 percent of blacks. Among low-income wives, blacks hold the employment
edge: over a third (35 percent) of black wives works full-time, compared with
23 percent of whites and 25 percent of Latinos.
The geographic distribution of low-income married couples varies substantially
by race and ethnicity. Nearly three quarters of low-income Hispanic couples
live in the southwestern U.S., whereas the majority of low-income black married
couples lives in the southeastern states. Both groups are disproportionately
concentrated in the central cities of large metropolitan areas. In contrast,
a relatively large fraction (37 percent) of low-income married whites lives
in rural areas.
These race-ethnicity differences have a number of possible implications for marriage
programs. One is that marriage education programs for Hispanic couples must be
appropriate for persons with very low levels of formal education, as well as with
English language difficulties. Another implication is that employment services
for husbands might be especially helpful for black couples. Finally, geographic
statistics suggest that substantial resources be allocated to serve Hispanics
in inner city neighborhoods in southwestern states, blacks from inner cities in
southeastern states, and whites from areas with relatively large rural populations.
- There is a marital quality gap between low-income and other couples,
but it is not as large as might be expected based on differences in marital
disruption rates.
There is some concern that prevention-oriented marriage education programs
developed for upper middle-class couples may be inappropriate if poor couples’
relationships are much more distressed. The fear is that poverty brings a substantial
array of stresses that spill over into marriages and create abundant marital
distress. Poor couples’ substantially higher disruption rates appear to support
this concern.
The weight of evidence suggests that marital quality is at most only slightly
lower for poor couples than for more advantaged ones, however. Statistics from
a 2003 general population survey in Florida show only a small difference in
mean levels on an index of relationship satisfaction between low-income (under
200 percent of poverty) and other married couples (Karney et al., 2003). An
analysis of pooled General Social Survey data for 1972-96 reveals no relationship
between responses to a simple question on marital satisfaction and (logged)
income for either men or women, and a weak positive association for education
(only among women), after controlling for age, year, and other demographic variables
(Waite, 2000). Taking public assistance receipt as the indicator of disadvantage
yields somewhat larger differences (Amato et al, 2003; Johnson et al., 2002;
Karney et al., 2003), suggesting that public assistance receipt may signal
more acute vulnerabilities to conditions harmful to marriage.
Exhibit 9 provides a sense of differences in relationship
quality by income for a nationwide population of married adults, based on the
question “How happy are you with your marriage?” [5] Percentages answering “very
happy” and “not too happy” are plotted by family income-to-needs (poverty) ratio
(the third category, “somewhat happy,” is not shown). The results are based
on pooled data from two cross-sectional surveys — the 1980 Marital Instability
Over the Life Course survey and the 2000 Survey of Marriage and Family Life
— for a total sample size of 4,026 married persons.
The fraction reporting that they are “very happy” increases steadily with income,
ranging from 56 percent in the bottom income group (poor) to 68 percent in the
top group (income more than six times above poverty). The increase in happiness
from one group to the next is fairly small, however. The fraction reporting
they are “not too happy” declines only a little over the entire income range.
Next, we examine income differences for three different dimensions of marital
quality. Each of the dimensions—marital happiness, positive interaction, and
divorce proneness—is measured using an index combining a different series of
survey items. [6] The marital
happiness index reflects global satisfaction with one’s marriage. The positive
interaction scale summarizes the frequency with which couples do things together.
Finally, the divorce proneness measure reflects the degree to which people have
thought, or are thinking, about divorce. Exhibit 10
reports the means for each index, standardizing individual scores so that their
mean is zero and their standard deviation is one. In the top panel (Model I),
we control for several demographic characteristics (age, race-ethnicity, gender,
marriage duration, and marriage order) that might affect marital quality and
vary by income. In the bottom panel (Model II), we control for wife’s education
and employment status in addition to the other variables in Model I. We combine
families under 200 percent of poverty in a single category due to small sample
sizes.
The associations of marital happiness and marital interaction with income are
positive and statistically significant in both Models I and II. As for the simpler
happiness measure (Exhibit 9), however, the income
differences are not that large: the difference between top and bottom income
categories is .31 standard deviations for marital happiness and about half that
(.18 standard deviations) for marital interaction. Controlling for wife’s education
and employment (Model II) strengthens the relationship between income and positive
interaction, but has little effect on the relationship between income and overall
happiness.
In contrast, divorce proneness is not associated with income when only demographic
adjustments are employed (Model I). When we control for wife’s education and
employment (Model II), however, the expected negative relationship appears —
divorce proneness is .16 standard lower in the highest than in the lowest income
group. [7]
This last result suggests that thoughts about divorce may be affected differently
by the couple’s economic situation and by the wife’s economic prospects. At
a given level of financial wherewithal, wives with more education and employment
may be more likely to think about leaving an unsatisfying marriage because they
are more likely to perceive that they can make it on their own. And, because
income is highly correlated with wife’s education and employment, the greater
stability of more affluent couples is not apparent until we control for wife’s
economic status.
Returning to the larger question, the evidence suggests that marital quality
is positively associated with family income, but also that the association is
relatively weak compared with differences in cumulative rates of actual marital
disruption. One explanation may be that weaker social supports and cultural
norms, and more stressful external circumstances, lead to more negative outcomes
for poor couples who do experience distress. The most important differences
thus may not be in relationship quality at a given point in time, but rather
in the rapidity with which things fall apart in the face of stressful events.
Weak associations between income and marital quality also may signal protective
mechanisms that help couples adapt to the stresses of poverty. Research on the
pathways between economic situations and relationship quality has identified
a number of moderating factors that may insulate couples from a certain amount
of stress spillover (Conger et al., 1999, 2002; Karney et al., 2003; Vinokur
et al., 1996). Couples appear to be able to recognize and discount for stress
effects, at least up to a point (Tessor and Beach 1998). Facing external challenges
successfully also can help bring couples closer together.
It is conceivable that poverty has aspects that are advantageous for couples.
In Florida, poor couples report spending significantly more time together than
higher-income couples, and this time is highly correlated with relationship
satisfaction (Karney et al., 2003). Earlier, we saw that poor couples averaged
substantially fewer hours of work than affluent ones. Thus, although low employment
surely creates financial stress, it also may allow couples more time to be together
and avoid some of the other stresses involved in balancing two full-time work
schedules.
This descriptive evidence on marital quality has several possible implications
for marriage interventions. The modest income differences in marital quality
should alleviate worries that vast numbers of disadvantaged couples are too
distressed to benefit from prevention-oriented marriage skills programs. At
the same time, if poor couples’ relationships stand a relatively high risk of
rapid deterioration, then the timing of education services, and of ongoing monitoring
and supports, could prove critical. If greater relationship fragility reflects
especially a lack of external supports and constraints, services addressing
external situations—and helping to create supportive conditions—may be helpful.
Finally, marriage programs should identify and build on the unique strengths,
as well as the challenges, facing poor couples.
Conclusions
In this paper, we have provided
an initial descriptive appraisal of the population of disadvantaged married
couples in the U.S. Comparing couples along several indicators of economic
disadvantage, we have looked at marriage entries and exits, at the timing
of first parenthood relative to marriage, at demographic and economic characteristics,
and at marital quality.
One theme in the findings is that
it can be dangerous to attribute to disadvantaged married couples results
observed for particular race-ethnicity or demographic groups. For example,
blacks are less likely than non-blacks at all economic levels to marry, but
poor people are just as likely as other people to marry. In contrast to their
prominence in the unwed parent population, blacks constitute only a small
fraction of low-income married couples, who are mostly white or Hispanic. To the extent that cultural differences linked to race and ethnicity affect
marriage behaviors, we should not assume that findings for fragile families
will apply to low-income married couples.
We have seen also signs that using
different indicators of economic disadvantage can produce somewhat different
answers to questions about married couples. The negative association
between economic status and entries to marriage (before age 30) is stronger
for education than for neighborhood income level, whereas the positive
association between economic status and marital stability (over the 15 years
following first marriage) is stronger for neighborhood income level than for
education. Looking at who is most likely to contemplate divorce, we find
that income reduces divorce proneness, but wife’s education and employment—another
indication of economic status—increases divorce proneness. These findings
underscore the need to examine a variety of indicators of economic disadvantage
in descriptive analyses.
We have noted a number of possible
implications for marriage initiatives. Most broadly, high marital instability
rates (and attendant risks for children) affirm that low-income couples indeed
do face special challenges in their marriages. At the same time, relatively
modest differences in marital quality suggest that prevention-oriented marriage
education programs developed for upper middle class couples could be appropriate
for low-income couples as well. Low levels of formal education—especially
among Latinos—point to the possibility that substantial adaptations in teaching
methods will be needed. High unemployment rates also remind us that it may
be useful to provide employment and other services in addition to marriage
skills programs. Regional and rural-urban distributions help us to assess
where key target groups may be concentrated. Finally, married couples’ substantial
participation in a wide variety of public programs suggests a variety of possible
channels for recruitment.
There remain a great many questions
deserving further research. One general need is to learn more about the various
demographic subgroups relevant to marriage intervention targeting and service
design—especially married couples with infants and adolescents and with children
from previous partners. It would be useful to learn much more about the characteristics
of economically disadvantaged couples that might have a bearing on relationship
outcomes, including a wide range of adult strengths and vulnerabilities and
contextual aspects such as social networks and community characteristics. Finally, there
is a great need for richer study of relationship processes
and outcomes—such as thought processes, emotional connections, and behavioral
interactions—of economically disadvantaged couples, particularly in comparison
with those of more affluent married couples. The best existing marriage education
programs have been based on careful research on upper-middle class couples,
and the extent to which their principles will apply to disadvantaged couples
is uncertain.
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