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- Title
Having a Baby: Impact on Married and Cohabiting Parents' Relationships.
- Authors
O'Reilly Treter, Maggie; Rhoades, Galena K.; Scott, Shelby B.; Markman, Howard J.; Stanley, Scott M.
- Abstract
The current study evaluates the effects of having a baby on relationship quality and stability, contrasting married and unmarried cohabiting parents (N = 179; 38% unmarried cohabiting). Participants provided several waves of data, including time points before, during, and after pregnancy. Results indicated that cohabiting parents broke up at a significantly higher rate after having a baby compared to married parents. In terms of relationship quality, interrupted time‐series analyses indicated that negative communication significantly increased after baby regardless of marital status. In addition, married parents had significantly higher levels of relationship satisfaction and commitment before baby compared to cohabiting parents but experienced modest declines in relationship satisfaction after baby. Cohabiting parents did not show such declines but remained lower in satisfaction throughout the study. Gender moderated commitment trajectories, such that married and cohabiting women demonstrated decreased commitment after baby, but married and cohabiting men demonstrated no significant changes in commitment. This study adds to the literature by examining both relationship stability and relationship quality trajectories from before pregnancy to after the birth of a baby among married and cohabiting parents in the same sample. Implications of these findings for practice and future research are discussed.
- Subjects
PARENTHOOD &; psychology; CHILDBIRTH &; psychology; PARENT attitudes; MARRIAGE; MARITAL satisfaction; SATISFACTION; WOMEN; PSYCHOLOGY of Spouses; PRE-tests &; post-tests; SEX distribution; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; COMMUNICATION; TIME series analysis; QUALITY of life; PARENT-child relationships; FAMILY relations; MARITAL status
- Publication
Family Process, 2021, Vol 60, Issue 2, p477
- ISSN
0014-7370
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/famp.12567