Context matters: Longitudinal associations between marital relationships and sibling relationships in Black families

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Olivenne D. Skinner,Susan M. McHale
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12658

RESEARCH

Context matters: Longitudinal associations between

marital relationships and sibling relationships

in Black families

Olivenne D. Skinner

1

|Susan M. McHale

2

1

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Merrill

Palmer Skillman Institute and Psychology,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan,

United States

2

Human Development and Family Studies,

The Pennsylvania State University,

Pennsylvania, United States

Correspondence

Olivenne D. Skinner, Merrill Palmer Skillman

Institute and Psychology, Wayne State

University, 71 East Ferry Street, Detroit, MI

48202, USA.

Email: o.skinner@wayne.edu

Funding information

National Institute of Child Health and Human

Development, Grant/Award Number:

R01-HD32336

Abstract

Objective and Background: Sibling relationship qualities

have been linked to parents’marital dynamics, but we know

little about the contextual conditions underlying these link-

ages. We examined longitudinal associations between parents’

reports of their marital satisfaction and conflict and siblings’

reports of warmth and conflict and tested whether these asso-

ciations varied by family economic strain, neighborhood eco-

nomic disadvantage, and parent and youth gender.

Method: Data were collected in three annual home inter-

views with mothers and fathers and two adolescent siblings

from 185 Black families.

Results: Results from multilevel models showed that asso-

ciations between mothers’and fathers’marital and youth’s

sibling relationship varied according to neighborhood

socioeconomic disadvantage, family economic strain, and

youth gender. For example, consistent with a spillover

model, on occasions when parents reported more marital

conflict than usual, youth reported less sibling positivity,

but only when parents also experienced less economic

strain than usual. Supporting a compensation hypothesis,

on occasions when parents reported more marital conflict

than usual, boys reported more sibling positivity.

Conclusions: Results provide new insights into family systems

processes in an understudied group, including the role of con-

textual factors and youth gender in shaping those processes.

Implications: Researchers and practitioners should con-

sider multiple family relationship dynamics and the larger

family contexts in which these relationships take place to

better understand youth relational adjustment.

KEYWORDS

Black American families, economic strain, marital quality, neighborhood

economic disadvantage, siblings

Received: 20 August 2020Revised: 10 May 2021Accepted: 10 August 2021

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12658

© 2022 National Council on Family Relations

Family Relations. 2022;71:987–1003. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 987

Sibling relationships provide an avenue for social, emotional, and cognitive development and

are an important source of influence in Black American families (Brody & Murry, 2001;

McHale et al., 2012; Whiteman et al., 2011,2015). Sibling relationship qualities also vary

over time and between families, and this heterogeneity is tied to other family relationship

dynamics. In particular, parents’marital interactions have been described as a model for

interpersonal relationships that set the tone for sibling interactions (Dunn et al., 1999). From

a family systems perspective, the marital and sibling subsystems are interdependent (Cox &

Paley, 1997; Minuchin, 1988). Most studies show congruent patterns linking marital dishar-

mony and sibling relationship difficulties; others show positive spillover between marital har-

mony and sibling closeness, in which the qualities of one relationship are mirrored in another

relationship (Kim et al., 2006;O’Connor et al., 1998;Stockeretal.,1997;Stocker&

Youngblade, 1999; Yu & Gamble, 2008). In contrast to such spillover patterns, a compensation

hypothesis holds thatindividuals may make up for one poor relationship by investing in

another (Erel & Burman, 1995). Indeed, some findings are consistent with a compensation pat-

tern in documenting close sibling relationships in the face of marital disharmony (Kim

et al., 2006;O’Connor et al. 1998; Sheehan et al., 2004). Still other studies have found no sig-

nificant associations linking marital and sibling relationships (Dawson et al., 2015;Ruff

et al., 2018).

In an effort to resolve these inconsistencies, in this study, we examined potential moderators

of marital–sibling relationship linkages. First, we tested whether two contextual conditions,

family economic strain and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, conditioned the associ-

ations between parents’reports of marital satisfaction and conflict and siblings’reports of posi-

tivity and conflict in their relationships. Among Black Americans, family economic strain and

neighborhood disadvantage may be sources of significant stress, including that due to historical

and present-day systemic and personal discrimination and racism (Murry et al., 2018). Second,

we examined both mothers’and fathers’marital relationship reports and tested whether parent

or youth gender moderated marital–sibling relationship linkages. Prior work documents that

gender is central in the organization of family dynamics, and although mothers’and fathers’

marital experiences have proven to have different implications for youth adjustment (Kim

et al., 2006; Lam et al., 2012), most prior studies of Black families, in particular, have failed to

include fathers or test the implications of mothers’and fathers’marital experiences for sons and

daughters. Identifying such moderators of family subsystem linkages can advance understand-

ing of family systems processes, and findings may have implications for targeted family preven-

tion and intervention efforts.

Beyond the potential effects of moderators, inconsistencies in findings regarding associa-

tions between marital and sibling relationships may stem from methodological factors. First,

prior studies vary in their focus on positive versus negative dimensions of parents’marital rela-

tionships. Marital satisfaction and conflict may be differentially salient and influential to ado-

lescents including because satisfaction targets parents’internal states, whereas conflict is more

overt and thus likely to be more visible and salient to youth. Consistent with this idea, previous

studies have shown that overt parental behaviors are more consistently linked to sibling rela-

tionship experiences than are parents’underlying attitudes (Dawson et al., 2015). Accordingly,

in this study, we assessed both marital conflict and satisfaction and examined their linkages to

sibling conflict and positivity.

We also expanded on prior research by studying these processes in a sample of Black Ameri-

can families, a group that has been relatively neglected in both sibling and marital relationship

research. Although 33% of Black children under the age of 18 reside in two parent-households

(U.S. Census Bureau, 2018), current scholarship on Black families focuses primarily on youth

in single parent families. Some scholars have argued that the extended family orientation

among Blacks may limit interdependencies between couple relationship dynamics and

parent–child relationships (McLoyd et al., 2001) as evidenced in the limited research on

988 FAMILY RELATIONS