Family Therapy Research Paper
The American Journal of Family Therapy, 36:300–311, 2008 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0192-6187 print / 1521-0383 online DOI: 10.1080/01926180701647512
Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness, but It Helps: Marital Satisfaction, Psychological Distress, and Demographic Differences Between Low- and Middle-Income Clinic Couples
JOHN DAKIN and RICHARD WAMPLER
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA
The characteristics of 51 very low-income and 61 middle-income couples receiving services from a university-based community clinic offering a sliding fee scale were compared on a number of demographic variables. Group differences were significant with the exception of the number of children and wife’s ethnicity. Middleincome couples were …show more content…
Obviously economic hardship causes individual and personal suffering that may bleed over into the relationship. Such suffering is manifested in men as irritability and withdrawal, and for the couple, economic instability delivers a serious blow to marital self-image (Freeman et al., 1993). More people might be better off if solving the problem were as easy as increased income and more favorable economic factors. However, most research suggests otherwise. Along with economic factors, research suggests that money management also affects marital satisfaction. “Money management constitutes a major source of marital conflict, and financial disagreements consistently rank as one of the most common distress areas for American couples” (Aniol & Snyder, 1997, p. 347). Blumstein and Schwartz (1983) found that couples who argue about money are really arguing about how to manage the money they have. Godwin (1990) has described the inadequacy of family financial management …show more content…
Although there is some support from prior research to generalize these results to a wider population, caution is needed. A second limitation is that the samples came from a single clinic located in a Southwestern state. Again, although one could argue that differences among clinic couples in other areas of the US would not be enormous, the presence of approximately 15% Hispanics, largely of Mexican origin, might limit generalization of the results with other Hispanic populations, e.g., Cuban or Puerto Rican, or with large numbers of other minority
Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness, but It Helps: Marital Satisfaction, Psychological Distress, and Demographic Differences Between Low- and Middle-Income Clinic Couples
JOHN DAKIN and RICHARD WAMPLER
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA
The characteristics of 51 very low-income and 61 middle-income couples receiving services from a university-based community clinic offering a sliding fee scale were compared on a number of demographic variables. Group differences were significant with the exception of the number of children and wife’s ethnicity. Middleincome couples were …show more content…
Obviously economic hardship causes individual and personal suffering that may bleed over into the relationship. Such suffering is manifested in men as irritability and withdrawal, and for the couple, economic instability delivers a serious blow to marital self-image (Freeman et al., 1993). More people might be better off if solving the problem were as easy as increased income and more favorable economic factors. However, most research suggests otherwise. Along with economic factors, research suggests that money management also affects marital satisfaction. “Money management constitutes a major source of marital conflict, and financial disagreements consistently rank as one of the most common distress areas for American couples” (Aniol & Snyder, 1997, p. 347). Blumstein and Schwartz (1983) found that couples who argue about money are really arguing about how to manage the money they have. Godwin (1990) has described the inadequacy of family financial management …show more content…
Although there is some support from prior research to generalize these results to a wider population, caution is needed. A second limitation is that the samples came from a single clinic located in a Southwestern state. Again, although one could argue that differences among clinic couples in other areas of the US would not be enormous, the presence of approximately 15% Hispanics, largely of Mexican origin, might limit generalization of the results with other Hispanic populations, e.g., Cuban or Puerto Rican, or with large numbers of other minority