Marital Processes Linking Gender Role Attitudes and Marital Satisfaction Among Mexican‐Origin Couples: Application of an Actor–Partner Interdependence Mediation Model

• Date: 01 March 2019
• Author: Claire A. Wood,Heather M. Helms,Andrew J. Supple,Yuliana Rodriguez,Natalie D. Hengstebeck
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12338

Marital Processes Linking Gender Role Attitudes

and Marital Satisfaction Among Mexican-Origin

Couples: Application of an Actor–Partner

Interdependence Mediation Model

HEATHER M. HELMS*

ANDREW J. SUPPLE*

NATALIE D. HENGSTEBECK

§

CLAIRE A. WOOD

†

YULIANA RODRIGUEZ

‡

Informed by dyadic approaches and culturally informed, ecological perspectives of mar-

riage, we applied an actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) in a sam-

ple of 120 Mexican-origin couples to examine (a) the associations linking Mexican

immigrant husbands’ and wives’ gender role attitudes to marital satisfaction directly and

indirectly through marital processes (i.e., warmth and negativity) and (b) whether the

associations between spouses’ gender role attitudes and marital processes were moderated

by wives’ employment. Although previous research has identified spouses’ gender role atti-

tudes as potential predictors of spouses’ marital satisfaction, no study has examined these

links in a dyadic model that elucidates how gender role attitudes may operate through pro-

cesses to shape marital satisfaction and conditions under which associations may differ.

We found that when spouses reported less sex-typed attitudes, their partn ers reported feel-

ing more connected to them and more satisfied with the marriage, regardless of whether

wives were employed. Our results suggest that marital satisfaction was highest for those

Mexican-origin couples in which marital partners were less sex-typed in their attitudes

about marital roles to the extent that partners’ attitudinal role flexibility promoted spouses’

feelings of warmth and connection to their partner.

Keywords: Gender role attitudes; Marriage; Marital processes; Latinos

Fam Proc 58:197–213, 2019

*Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,

Greensboro, NC.

†

Missouri Institute of Mental Health, Saint Louis, MO.

‡

Department of Human Development and Family Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.

§

Scholars Strategy Network and Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, Durham, NC.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Heather M. Helms, Department of

Human Development and Family Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

27412. E-mail: heather_helms@uncg.edu

This research was funded by a University of North Carolina at Greensboro Regular Faculty Grant and

the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Award NC07299 granted to

Dr. Heather Helms, principal investigator. Additional funding was provided by UNCG Faculty First

Award and School of Health and Human Sciences Research Grant awarded to Dr. Heather Helms and

Dr. Andrew Supple, co-principal investigators. Many thanks to participating couples and project staff,

including Monsy Bonilla, Diana Escobar, Mary Julia Moore, Darlene Pitaluga, Ashley Valezquez, Jill

Walls, and Maylee Vazquez. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2015 annual meeting of

the National Council on Family Relations in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Family Process, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2019 ©2018 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12338

The link between spouses’ gender role attitudes and marital satisfaction has long been

of interest to family scholars, particularly for those studying Latino families. In their

comprehensive review spanning two decades of research on gender roles and family pro-

cesses, Davis and Greenstein (2009) documented direct associations between husbands’

and wives’ gender role attitudes and marital satisfaction. However, the nature of these

associations across studies was inconsistent. Although several of the studies reviewed

found associations suggesting that more sex-typed gender role attitudes were linked with

lower marital satisfaction, other studies found no significant direct associations, and

others showed effects in opposite directions for husbands and wives. The atheoretical

nature this body of research likely contributed to the mixed findings on the gender role

attitudes–marital satisfaction link (Davis & Greenstein, 2009). Further, this research was

limited due to its reliance on dated statistical techniques applied to predominantly White,

middle-class samples of married individuals that have not attended to the role of mari-

tal processes in explaining the association or potential moderators of the association.

Notably, research exploring the link between gender role attitudes and marital satisfac-

tion among Latino couples was absent from the literature reviewed by Davis and

Greenstein and reflects the larger marital literature where empirical studies of

marital satisfaction for Latino or immigrant couples are scarce (see Glick, 2010, for a

review of research on immigrant families and Helms, 2013, for a review of research on

marriage).

Dyadic perspectives informed by cultural ecological approaches of marriage under-

score how marital processes are likely to serve as mechanisms linking spouses’ gender

role attitudes to their own and their partners’ marital satisfaction and the contextual

conditions that may qualify these associations (Crouter & Helms-Erikson, 1997; Helms,

Supple, & Proulx, 2011; Huston, 2000; Peplau, 1983). Qualitative studies with Latino

parents and Mexican-origin couples have provided additional insight about the specific

marital processes by which spouses’ gender role attitudes may be transmitted to mari-

tal satisfaction (e.g., Helms, Hengstebeck, Rodriguez, Mendez, & Crosby, 2015; Hirsch,

2003; Parra-Cardona, C

ordova, Holtrop, Villarruel, & Wieling, 2008). In contrast to the

view that Latinos universally endorse cultural values that promote stereotypic notions

regarding family roles (e.g., Pe~

nalosa, 1968), these contemporary studies underscore

variation in Latino parents’ and Mexican-origin spouses’ qualitative accounts about

family life, marital roles, and gender role attitudes. In addition, consistent themes

emerged across these studies showing that some spouses defined their gender role atti-

tudes in a manner that supported expressions of marital warmth and emotional connec-

tion as well as a desire to reduce marital negativity and destructive conflict strategies

as part of their gendered marital role (i.e., to be a “good” husband or wife). This work

suggests that links between gender role attitudes and marital processes may be espe-

cially salient for Mexican immigrant couples (representing the largest group of Latinos

in the United States) where contextual demands, such as the necessity of wives’

employment, require role flexibility (Boneva & Frieze, 2001; Helms et al., 2011). In this

way, it may be that espousing more flexible gender role attitudes promotes marital

warmth and reduces negativity—particularly in the context of wives’ employment—and

that these marital processes are then, in turn, linked with marital satisfaction. Accord-

ingly, in this study, we applied an actor–partner interdependence mediation model

(APIMeM; Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011) to examine (a) the associations linking

Mexican immigrant husbands’ and wives’ gender role attitudes to marital satisfaction

directly and indirectly through marital processes (i.e., warmth and negativity) and (b)

whether the associations between spouses’ gender role attitudes and marital processes

were moderated by wives’ employment.

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