The Family Structure And Marital Relations Of Generational Comparison

This search aims at studying the variation trends of family structures and maritalrelations in different generations as time goes on.Firstly, we made a survey on the marital relations of2404couples based on《Locke-Wallace(MAT)》、《Olson(ENRICH)》&《MHT》 and discussed the variationtrends in both individual level and interactive level of marital relations under differentfamily life-cycles and different marriage age and the influence of age difference andeducational background on marital relations.Next, we empirically analyzed the characteristics of family structures changes in ournation by classifying the family structures of1985families and contrasting the sample dataof the sixth demographic census and investigated the impact of family structure styles onmarital relations.Finally, we focused on the research of the80s&90s and found out the features of themarital relations mainly among the post-80s generation. The study shows:(1)There are significant gender differences in marital satisfaction and maritaladjustment level of the couple.(2)Male are1.7years older than female on average among the couple samples in ourcountry and this gives us an idea that a husband is older than his partner is common inChina. At the same time, the age difference trends to expand as the age of the coupleincreases and when this difference is excess it will affect the harmony of marital relations.(3)Male and female marital satisfaction and marital adjustment significant differencesbetween different cultural levels, the higher the education level, marital satisfaction andmarital adjustment marital higher the score.(4) Variation trends of marital relations in personal levels of different family life-cyclephases as follows: Male marriage satisfaction and marriage adjustment show significantdifferences in different life-cycle phases.It is a “U” curve.The “down time” of familylife-cycle we found by study is5to10years in advance of that the western studied. Thedifferences of female marriage satisfaction and levels of marriage adjustment areindistinctive. The variation trends are also obvious in interactive level. (5)Great differences exist in both personal level and interactive level of maritalrelations at different marriage ages. The results of marital relations in personal level showthat there will be a “down time” which corresponds to the third stage of family life-cycle(the pre-school age stage) if the marriage age is6-10years. when it comes to interactivelevel, the understanding level, tacit understanding and interaction all generally increase asthe marriageable age increases.(6)Our nation’s family structures still remain like this:“core families” dominates,lineal families account for quite a large proportion while combined families reduce. Thereare urban-rural and intergenerational differences among family structure and householdsizes：the household size trends to gradually increase from the city to the countryside andso as to the percentage of lineal families in family types from the1980s-1950s, the level ofsatisfaction in a conjugal family is obviously higher than that in a standard core family or alineal family.(7)Couples born in various times have great intergenerational differences ininteractive level of marital relations.The birth of baby can have an effect on maritalrelations; the childless couple have better relations than those who have; whether to livewith parents can significantly influence female marriage adjustment which is marked lowerto wives who live with parents than those who don’t. Education can significantly predict80s couple’s marital satisfaction and marital adjustment.