While many things have changed since 1980, marriage does not seem to be one of them. A recent study of married couples finds the overall quality of life has not changed much for couples in the last 20 years. On average, people report being as happily married now as they were two decades ago. Yet they are also as divorce-prone, notes lead author Alan Booth, Ph.D., professor of sociology, human development and family studies at Penn State University. The study appeared in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
Booth compared two national marriage surveys, one from 1980 and another from 2000. To gauge the quality of marriages, the survey asked about three aspects of wedlock: happiness as a couple, the couple's interaction with each other and whether the couple had divorced or considered getting divorced.
Booth found no major changes in marital happiness or divorce-proneness. There was only a slight decline in the amount of time married couples spend together, which Booth attributes to more people working in service economy jobs that have unusual hours. The survey also found that men are doing more housework in 2000 than they were in 1980. This seems to have had a positive affect on women's view of marriage, but a slightly negative affect on men's view. Brown expects the trend to disappear with time based on preliminary research he's done for another study.
