The Effect of Parents' Marital Satisfaction on Young Adults' Adaptation: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Two questions were examined: (a) whether the effects of parents? marital satisfaction on offspring's adaptation are durable and continue to be manifest when offspring grow up, and (b) whether marital satisfaction operates through the mechanisms of family closeness or cohesion. To address these questions a community-based sample of 172 adolescents was studied twice: as teenagers aged 13—18 years, and approximately 6 years later as young adults aged 19—25. At both Time 1 and Time 2 each parent completed a measure of marital satisfaction and their adolescents completed self-ratings of emotional and physical health. At Time 1 adolescents completed three rating scales related to family closeness or cohesion, and at time 2 they rated how close they felt to their mothers and to their fathers. Correlational and regression analyses revealed the following: (a) over a 6-year interval, the marital satisfaction of mothers was somewhat better than that of fathers in predicting the subsequent emotional and physical health of young adults; (b) parents? marital satisfaction assessed when offspring were adolescents predicted young adult outcomes better than contemporaneous associations at either Time 1 or Time 2; (c) although family closeness or cohesion served as a mediator for some outcomes, direct paths remained between marital satisfaction and young adult outcomes.