Relative Socioeconomic Status of Spouses, Gender Attitudes, and Attributes, and Marital Quality Experienced by Couples in Metropolitan Moscow

Abstract

In this paper we expand the line of research in the United States suggesting marital quality or marital stability experienced by spouses is at risk when the socioeconomic attainments of wives equal or surpass those of their husbands to a different cultural context, metropolitan Moscow. Specifically, we analyze the direct and relative effects of spouses’ education, employment status, occupational prestige, and income on the marital quality experienced by Russian husbands and wives in 1996. In addition, we test whether gender beliefs and attributes of husbands and/or wives interact with relative socioeconomic statuses in their effects on marital quality. The data for the study were collected through a multi-stage, cluster probability sample in the Moscow metropolitan area and the sampling frame consisted of voter registration lists randomly selected from municipalities that were randomly selected from nine prefectures in Moscow. The working data set is 746 couples. Among dual earner couples, contrary to expectation, wives with occupational status lower than husbands have lower marital quality than wives with occupational status higher than husbands. Wives’ marital quality is highest when spouses’ incomes are more similar than different. Both spouses’ marital quality is positively affected by their own and their partner’s ability to be sensitive, while wife’s instrumentality negatively affects both spouses’ marital quality.