Table 4 Multiple logistic regression model for determining the predictors of marital satisfaction in older adults. The result shows that elderly people have undoubtedly better feeling about their marital life that cause to effective discussion for understanding each other. It could be considered because of religious beliefs which cause to controlling anger and considering the God when anger Occurs.
Thus, it seems that conflict between couples is prevented as a result of religious beliefs. The results show that although marital satisfaction in the elderly couples was similar in univarate analysis, but after removing the confounding effect these differences was significant.
However, the multivariate analysis showed that marital satisfaction was higher in men than women. The reason can be attributed to the higher expectations of women rather men. In addition, feelings about relationships or marital satisfaction are not easily expressed in our society by women.
In contrast to these results, Amato is expressed that satisfaction and happiness were similarly equal in men and women. To be more precise, one of the most influential factors affecting marital satisfaction is sexual satisfaction. Additionally, aging causes disturbances in sexual function and activity. In addition, according to Bramon study geographical differences affecting common life satisfaction.
Therefore, in order to extend the results, geographical and cultural differences must also be considered. Occupation and income was another factor influences on marital satisfaction interacting with other variables in elderly groups. Most of marital satisfaction has been among housewives, then individuals with governmental occupation, next self-employed people and ultimately workers.
This is probably due to the lack of economic stability for self-employed people that decrease marital satisfaction. The results of Sadegh Moghadam et al. Overall, Job insecurity and low income followed by concern about economic problems and lower marital satisfaction. Thus, it seems that sufficient income cases to high levels of marital satisfaction. Identically, Zainah et al. Similarly, the result of another study indicated that mental health of husbands, who their wives are not housewives, is more than others.
So, it seems that Women's employment, if that would not conflict with their roles as wives, have a positive impact on their husbands, children and also their social interactions. The results of the present study have shown that remarriage decreases marital satisfaction. In other words, People who remarried were less satisfied with their marriages than those who did not remarry.
Ahmadi et al. In explaining these findings, it can be said that the people with marital problems in their first marriage will experience similar problems in subsequent ones which cause to lower marital satisfaction rather first marriage. To put it simply, instability of first marital caused instability in the subsequent marriage. The results of this study showed that there was no relationship between overall satisfactions of marriage and education.
The reason probably is the low educational level of elderly participants both sexes in this study. It can be added that studies have shown that increasing the education level of the couples cause to understanding each other more, which in turn may increase their marital satisfaction. It also can improve the economic situation of families.
As a consequence, pressure of economic problems is reduced and consequently marital satisfaction wills improve. Number of children was the other demographic variables were examined in this study.
According to results of this study, there was no relationship between overall marital satisfaction and the number of children. Nevertheless, Edwards and White 24 were stated that no children are positively correlated with marital satisfaction. Bakhshi et al. Blumel concluded that child care two or more increases quality of life. On the other hand, other studies about different culture and also different age have reported that factors affecting marital relationship is obviously vary in different culture.
All in all, it is suggested that more investigations needs to be applied in order to reliable Results. Oddly enough, there was no relationship between marital satisfaction lengths of marriage presumably because of high average of marriage length about all elderly people in this study that contributes to marital satisfaction. It is claimed that as a result of achieving compatibility over time, couples experience less conflict and stress.
So, as Jose and Alfons have stated lengths of marriage is related to marital satisfaction; however, in this study due to the high average of marriage length about all elderly people there was no relationship between marital satisfaction lengths of marriage.
While there was no relationship between marital satisfaction and smoking in this study, Himish et al. Considering current study has been compared the marital satisfaction in elderly men and women, showed that older people were in the high satisfaction range.
Due to this study was conducted in a traditional and religious society which contributes to marital satisfaction, this result was not unexpected. Therefore, it is recommended to educate and raise awareness of women's culture in order to obtain self-express and also self esteem.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Withdrawal Guidlines. Publication Ethics. Withdrawal Policies Publication Ethics. Research Article Volume 1 Issue 4. Effects of Demographic Variables on Marital Satisfaction. Asian Social Science. David Eugene Bel. The relationship between distal religious and proximal spiritual variables and self-reported marital happiness.
Rubell S. Journal of Counseling and Development. Underlying factors-interpersonal communication-Mutual influence of marital adjustment. Journal of Family Research. The relationship between religious orientation and marital adjustment. This reflects the fact that men are more likely to remarry than are women. Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women AARP, Most divorces take place within the first 5 to 10 years of marriage. After a few years of limited success, the couple may decide to end the marriage.
It used to be that divorce after having been married for 20 or more years was rare, but in recent years the divorce rate among more long-term marriages has been increasing.
Brown and Lin note that while the divorce rate in the U. There is less stigma attached to divorce today than in the past. Some older women are out-earning their spouses, and thus may be more financially capable of supporting themselves, especially as most of their children have grown.
Finally, given increases in human longevity, the prospect of living several more years or decades with an incompatible spouse may prompt middle-aged and older adults to leave the marriage.
Gottman and Levenson found that the divorces in early adulthood were more angry and conflictual, with each partner blaming the other for the failures in the marriage. In contrast, they found that at midlife divorces tended to be more about having grown apart, or a cooling off of the relationship. A survey by AARP found that men and women had diverse motivations for getting a divorce. Both genders felt their marriage had been over long before the decision to divorce was made, with many of the middle-aged adults in the survey reporting that they stayed together because they were still raising children.
Only 1 in 4 regretted their decision to divorce. The effects of divorce are varied. Divorce at midlife is more stressful for women. However, a number women who divorce in midlife report that they felt a great release from their day-to-day sense of unhappiness.
Dating Post-Divorce: Most divorced adults have dated by one year after filing for divorce Anderson et al. One in four recent filers report having been in or were currently in a serious relationship, and over half were in a serious relationship by one year after filing for divorce. Not surprisingly, younger adults were more likely to be dating than were middle aged or older adults, no doubt due to the larger pool of potential partners from which they could to draw.
Of course, these relationships will not all end in marriage. Teachman found that more than two thirds of women under the age of 45 had cohabited with a partner between their first and second marriages.
Dating for adults with children can be more of a challenge. Courtships are shorter in remarriage than in first marriages. So the couple gets less time together to focus on their relationship.
Anxiety or memories of past relationships can also get in the way. Post-divorce parents gatekeep, that is, they regulate the flow of information about their new romantic partner to their children, in an attempt to balance their own needs for romance with consideration regarding the needs and reactions of their children. Anderson et al. The family itself is a symbol. To some, it is a father, mother, and children; to others, it is any union that involves respect and compassion.
Interactionists stress that family is not an objective, concrete reality. Like other social phenomena, it is a social construct that is subject to the ebb and flow of social norms and ever-changing meanings. These meanings are more free-flowing through changing family roles. Interactionists also recognize how the family status roles of each member are socially constructed, playing an important part in how people perceive and interpret social behaviour.
These roles are up for interpretation. The rules and expectations that coordinate the behaviour of family members are products of social processes and joint agreement, even if the agreements are tacit or implicit. In this perspective, norms and social conventions are not regarded as permanently fixed by functional requirements or unequal power relationships. Rather, new norms and social conventions continually emerge from ongoing social interactions to make family structures intelligible in new situations and to enable them to operate and sustain themselves.
As the structure of family changes over time, so do the challenges families face. Events like divorce and remarriage present new difficulties for families and individuals. Other long-standing domestic issues such as abuse continue to strain the health and stability of families. Divorce, while fairly common and accepted in modern Canadian society, was once a word that would only be whispered and was accompanied by gestures of disapproval.
Prior to the introduction of the Divorce Act in there was no federal divorce law in Canada. In provincial jurisdictions where there were divorce laws, spouses had to prove adultery or cruelty in court.
These legislative changes had immediate consequences on the divorce rate. In , divorce was generally uncommon, affecting only 36 out of every , married persons. In , the year after the introduction of the Divorce Act, the number of divorces doubled from from 55 divorces per , population to The divorce rate peaked in after the amendment at divorces per , population.
Over the last quarter century, divorce rates have dropped steadily reaching divorces per , population in Kelly The dramatic increase in divorce rates after the s has been associated with the liberalization of divorce laws as noted above and the shift in societal makeup including the increase of women entering the workforce Michael and marital breakdowns in the large cohort of baby boomers Kelly The decrease in divorce rates can be attributed to two probable factors: an increase in the age at which people get married, and an increased level of education among those who marry—both of which have been found to promote greater marital stability.
So what causes divorce? While more young people are choosing to postpone or opt out of marriage, those who enter into the union do so with the expectation that it will last. A great deal of marital problems can be related to stress, especially financial stress. This is connected to factors such as age and education level that correlate with low incomes.
The addition of children to a marriage creates added financial and emotional stress. Research has established that marriages enter their most stressful phase upon the birth of the first child Popenoe and Whitehead This is particularly true for couples who have multiples twins, triplets, and so on.
Married couples with twins or triplets are 17 percent more likely to divorce than those with children from single births McKay Another contributor to the likelihood of divorce is a general decline in marital satisfaction over time. As people get older, they may find that their values and life goals no longer match up with those of their spouse Popenoe and Whitehead Divorce is thought to have a cyclical pattern.
Children of divorced parents are 40 percent more likely to divorce than children of married parents. And when we consider children whose parents divorced and then remarried, the likelihood of their own divorce rises to 91 percent Wolfinger This might result from being socialized to a mindset that a broken marriage can be replaced rather than repaired Wolfinger That sentiment is also reflected in the finding that when both partners of a married couple have been previously divorced, their marriage is 90 percent more likely to end in divorce Wolfinger Another 1 percent of the ever-married population aged 25 and over had been married more than twice Clark and Crompton American data show that most men and women remarry within five years of a divorce, with the median length for men three years being lower than for women 4.
This length of time has been fairly consistent since the s. The majority of those who remarry are between the ages of 25 and 44 Kreider Marriage the second time around or third or fourth can be a very different process than the first. Remarriage lacks many of the classic courtship rituals of a first marriage. In a second marriage, individuals are less likely to deal with issues like parental approval, premarital sex, or desired family size Elliot Clark and Crompton suggest that second marriages tend to be more stable than first marriages, largely because the spouses are older and more mature.
At the time of the Statistics Canada General Social Survey, 71 percent of the remarried couples surveyed were still together and had been for an average of 13 years. Couples tend to marry a second time more for intimacy-based reasons rather than external reasons and therefore enjoy a greater quality of relationship Clark and Crompton Divorce and remarriage can be stressful for partners and children alike.
Divorce is often justified by the notion that children are better off in a divorced family than in a family with parents who do not get along. Research suggests that separating out particular factors of the divorce, especially whether or not the divorce is accompanied by parental conflict, is key to determining whether divorce has a significant negative impact on children Amato and Keith Certainly while marital conflict does not provide an ideal childrearing environment, going through a divorce can also be damaging.
Children are often confused and frightened by the threat to their family security. They may feel responsible for the divorce and attempt to bring their parents back together, often by sacrificing their own well-being Amato Only in high-conflict homes do children benefit from divorce and the subsequent decrease in conflict.
The majority of divorces come out of lower-conflict homes, and children from those homes are more negatively impacted by the stress of the divorce than the stress of unhappiness in the marriage Amato Research has found that divorce may be most difficult for school-aged children, as they are old enough to understand the separation but not old enough to understand the reasoning behind it.
Older teenagers are more likely to recognize the conflict that led to the divorce but may still feel fear, loneliness, guilt, and pressure to choose sides. Infants and preschool-age children may suffer the heaviest impact from the loss of routine that the marriage offered Temke Boys who live or have joint arrangements with their fathers show less aggression than those who are raised by their mothers only.
Similarly, girls who live or have joint arrangements with their mothers tend to be more responsible and mature than those who are raised by their fathers only.
Nearly 70 percent of the children of parents who are divorced have their primary residence with their mother, leaving many boys without a father figure residing in the home. Another 15 percent of the children lived with their father and 9 percent moved back and forth between both parents equally Sinha There is empirical evidence that divorce has not discouraged children in terms of how they view marriage and family. These numbers have continued to climb over the last 25 years. Abuse can occur between spouses, between parent and child, as well as between other family members.
The frequency of violence among families is a difficult to determine because many cases of spousal abuse and child abuse go unreported. In any case, studies have shown that abuse reported or not has a major impact on families and society as a whole.
Domestic violence is a significant social problem in Canada. One in four victims of violent crime in Canada was victimized by a spouse or family member in Sinha Domestic violence is often characterized as violence between household or family members, specifically spouses. To include unmarried, cohabitating, and same-sex couples, family sociologists have created the term intimate partner violence IPV. Women are the primary victims of intimate partner violence.
It is estimated that 1 in 4 women has experienced some form of IPV in her lifetime compared to 1 in 7 men Catalano In , women in Canada had more than double the risk of men of becoming a victim of police-reported family violence Sinha IPV often starts as emotional abuse and then escalates to other forms or combinations of abuse Centers for Disease Control In , of IPV acts that involved physical actions against women, 71 percent involved physical assault 57 percent were common assault including punching, slapping, and pushing, while another 10 percent were major assaults involving a weapon or causing major bodily injury ; 3 percent involved sexual assault; 10 percent involved uttering threats; 5 percent indecent or threatening phone calls; and 9 percent criminal harassment or stalking Sinha This is slightly different than IPV abuse patterns for men, which show that 79 percent of acts of IPV take the form of physical violence and less than 1 percent involve sexual assault Sinha Interestingly, in , a slightly larger proportion of physical assaults against male intimate partners resulted in injury 55 percent compared to female intimate partners 51 percent Sinha IPV affects women at greater rates than men because women often take the passive role in relationships and may become emotionally dependent on their partner.
Perpetrators of IPV work to establish and maintain such dependence in order to hold power and control over their victims, making them feel stupid, crazy, or ugly—in some way worthless. Between and , nearly one-quarter of women murdered by their intimate partners were murdered for reasons of jealousy compared to 10 percent of male victims Sinha IPV affects different segments of the population at different rates.
The rate of self-reported IPV for aboriginal women is about 2. The severity of intimate partner violence also differed. Nearly 6 in 10 aboriginal women reported injury as a result of IPV compared to 4 in 10 non-aboriginal women. As a result, aboriginal female victims were also much more likely to report that they feared for their lives as a result of IPV 52 percent compared to 31 percent of non-aboriginal women Sinha On the other hand, visible minority and immigrant groups do not have significantly different levels of self-reported spousal violence than the rest of the population Statistics Canada Those who are separated report higher rates of abuse than those with other marital statuses, as conflict is typically higher in those relationships.
Similarly, those who are cohabitating or living in a common-law relationship are more likely than those who are married to experience IPV Statistics Canada American researchers have found that the rate of IPV doubles for women in low-income disadvantaged areas when compared to IPV experienced by women who reside in more affluent areas Benson and Fox In Canada, the statistics do not bear this relationship out.
Household income and education levels appear to have little effect on experiencing spousal violence. Regardless of income level, the proportion of reported spousal violence was between 1 and 2 percent. However, rates of IPV were nearly double in rural Canada than in the major metropolitan areas incidents per , population compared to Overall, women ages 25 to 34 are at the greatest risk of physical or sexual assault by an intimate partner Statistics Canada Accurate statistics on IPV are difficult to determine, as less than one-quarter of victims report incidents to the police Statistics Canada It is not until victims choose to report crimes that patterns of abuse are exposed.
Two-thirds of victims in Statistics Canada self-reported victimization studies stated that abuse had occurred more than once prior to their first police report. Nearly 3 in 10 stated that they had been abused more than 10 times prior to reporting Statistics Canada According to the Statistics Canada General Social Survey , victims cite varied reason why they are reluctant to report abuse, as shown in Table IPV has significant long-term effects on individual victims and on society.
Studies have shown that IPV damage extends beyond the direct physical or emotional wounds. Extended IPV has been linked to unemployment among victims, as many have difficulty finding or holding employment. Additionally, nearly all women who report serious domestic problems exhibit symptoms of major depression Goodwin, Chandler, and Meisel Female victims of IPV are also more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, suffer from eating disorders, and attempt suicide Silverman et al.
IPV is indeed something that impacts more than just intimate partners. In a survey, 34 percent of respondents said they have witnessed IPV, and 59 percent said that they know a victim personally Roper Starch Worldwide Many people want to help IPV victims but are hesitant to intervene because they feel that it is a personal matter or they fear retaliation from the abuser—reasons similar to those of victims who do not report IPV.
Children are among the most helpless victims of abuse. In , more than 18, children and youth under the age of 17 were victims of police-reported family violence in Canada, accounting for nearly a quarter of all violent offences against children and youth Sinha Child abuse may come in several forms, the most common being neglect, followed by physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, and medical neglect Child Help Whereas the overall rate of violent crime involving children and youth is lower than the rate for the population as a whole, the rate of sexual assault is five times higher Sinha Level 1 sexual assault not involving a weapon or aggravated assault comprised 75 percent of these offences, while child-specific sexual crimes including sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, luring a child via a computer, and corrupting children comprised another 22 percent.
Girls were 37 percent more likely than boys to be the victim of family violence and almost twice as likely by the time they reached ages 12 to In large part this is because girls are almost four times as likely to be a victim of sexual assault by a family member than boys are.
Twenty-five percent of all violent crime against children and youth was perpetrated by a family member parent, sibling, extended family member, or spouse , while another 54 percent involved an accused known to the victim casual acquaintances, close friends, or dating partners Sinha Fifty-nine percent of family violence against children was committed by parents, 19 percent by siblings, and 22 percent by other family members Statistics Canada Understandably, these figures vary with the age of the child.
In terms of child abuse reported to provincial and territorial child welfare authorities, infants children less than 1 year old were the most victimized population with an incident rate of 52 investigations per 1, children compared to 43 per 1, for 1 to 3 year olds, the next highest category Public Health Agency of Canada Infants younger than 1 year are also the most vulnerable to family homicide, 98 percent of which were committed by parents 27 per million between and , compared to 9 per million for 1 to 3 year olds, the next highest category Sinha This age group is particularly vulnerable to neglect because they are entirely dependent on parents for care.
Some parents do not purposely neglect their children; factors such as cultural values, standard of care in a community, and poverty can lead to hazardous level of neglect. If information or assistance from public or private services are available and a parent fails to use those services, child welfare services may intervene Public Health Agency of Canada Infants are also often victims of physical abuse, particularly in the form of violent shaking.
Other stress factors such as a poor economy, unemployment, and general dissatisfaction with parental life may contribute to this type of abuse. Shaken-baby syndrome was attributed as the cause of nearly one-third 31 percent of family-related homicides of infants less than 1 year between and Sinha News reports in June broke the sensational story of dozens of children being apprehended by Child and Family Services from a small Old Order Mennonite community in southern Manitoba.
Several members of the community were charged by police with assault when they received reports that children had been disciplined using a leather strap, whip, and cattle prod Hitchen At one point, all the children except for one 17 year old had be apprehended by authorities CBC News The law that permits the use of corporal punishment for children in Canada was upheld by a Supreme Court ruling in within certain restrictions, but corporal punishment remains a controversial issue in Canada CBC News Physical abuse of children may come in the form of beating, kicking, throwing, choking, hitting with objects, burning, or other methods.
Injury inflicted by such behaviour is considered abuse even if the parent or caregiver did not intend to harm the child. Other types of physical contact that are characterized as discipline spanking, for example are not considered abuse as long as no injury results. The court ruled that it was unacceptable to strike a child with an object, like a strap or whip, and striking a child in the head was also unacceptable.
This issue is rather controversial among modern-day Canadians. While some parents feel that physical discipline, or corporal punishment, is an effective way to respond to bad behaviour, others feel that it is a form of abuse.
According to a study of mothers with preschoolers in Manitoba and Ontario, 70 percent of respondents reported using corporal punishment. One-third of them used it at least once a week. A poll conducted by the Globe and Mail in found that 78 percent of Canadian parents with children under 18 believed that parents do not discipline their children enough and another 42 percent believed spanking benefited child development Pearce However, studies have shown that spanking is not an effective form of punishment and may lead to aggression by the victim, particularly in those who are spanked at a young age Berlin A meta-analysis of research conducted over two decades published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that spanking was no better than other parenting methods at eliciting compliance in children and was in fact linked not only to increased levels of childhood aggression but also to long-term effects such as depression, emotional and behavioural problems, and drug and alcohol use in adulthood Durrant and Ensom This research led the editor-in-chief of the journal to call for the repeal of the spanking law from the Criminal Code.
What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? Sociologists view marriage and families as societal institutions that help create the basic unit of social structure. Both marriage and a family may be defined differently—and practised differently—in cultures across the world. Families and marriages, like other institutions, adapt to social change. Increases in cohabitation, same-sex partners, and singlehood are altering of our ideas of marriage.
Similarly, single parents, same-sex parents, cohabitating parents, and unwed parents are changing our notion of what it means to be a family. While many children still live in opposite-sex, two-parent, married households, these are no longer viewed as the only type of nuclear family.
Challenges Families Face Families face a variety of challenges, including divorce, domestic violence, and child abuse.
While divorce rates have decreased in the last 25 years, many family members, especially children, still experience the negative effects of divorce. Children are also negatively impacted by violence and abuse within the home, with 18, children victimized by family violence each year.
Sociologists tend to define family in terms of. Variations in Family Life 6. Challenges Families Face For more statistics on marriage and family, see the Statistics Canada report based on the census: Portrait of Families and Living Arrangements in Canada: Families, households and marital status, Census of Population.
Introduction to Marriage and Family Jayson, Sharon. Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. Useem, Andrea. Altman, Irwin and Joseph Ginat. Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Zymunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Cohen, Philip. Glick, Paul. Globe and Mail. October 8. Griver, Simon. Haak, Wolfgang et al. Harrell, Stevan. Jayson, Sharon.
Joseph, Suad and Afsaneh Najmabadi. Lambert, Bernd. Lee, Richard. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Mails, Thomas E. Minister of Justice. Criminal Code R. C, s. July Murdock, George P.
Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary. Murphy, Patrick and William Staples. Parsons, Talcott and Robert Bales. Family Socialization and Interaction Process.
0コメント