Relationship quality and support for family policy during the COVID‐19 pandemic

• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Spencer James,Anis Ben Brik,McKell Jorgensen‐Wells,Rosario Esteinou,Iván Darío Moreno Acero,Belén Mesurado,Patricia Debeljuh,Olivia Nuñez Orellana
• Date: 01 October 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12705

RESEARCH

Relationship quality and support for family policy

during the COVID-19 pandemic

Spencer James

1

|Anis Ben Brik

2

|McKell Jorgensen-Wells

1

|

Rosario Esteinou

3

|Iv



an Darío Moreno Acero

4

|Belén Mesurado

5

|

Patricia Debeljuh

6

|Olivia Nuñez Orellana

7

1

School of Family Life, Brigham Young

University, Provo, Utah, United States

2

College of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa

University, Doha, Ad Dawhah, Qatar

3

Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios

Superiores de Antropologia Social, Ciudad de

México, Mexico

4

Instituto de la Familia, Universidad de La

Sabana, Chia, Colombia

5

Instituto de Filosofia de la Universidad

Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina

6

Centro de Conciliaci

on Familia y Empresa,

Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina

7

Consejo de Construye, Observatorio para la

Mujer de América Latina y el Caribe, Mexico

City, Mexico

Correspondence

Email: spencer_james@byu.edu

Abstract

Objective: We examined how relationship satisfaction

changed during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as

well as how relationship satisfaction related to public pol-

icy support.

Background: Conservation of resources (COR) theory

suggests that societal-level stressors (such as a global

pandemic) threaten familial and individual resources,

straining couple relationships. Relationship satisfaction is

in turn linked with important individual, familial, and

societal outcomes, necessitating research on how COVID-

19 impacted this facet of relationships.

Method: Drawing from an international project on

COVID-19 and family life, participants included 734 mar-

ried and cohabiting American parents of children under

18 years of age.

Results: Findings revealed relationship satisfaction declined

moderately compared to retrospective reports of relationship

satisfaction prior to the pandemic. This decline was more pre-

cipitous for White individuals, women, parents less involved

in their children’s lives, and those reporting higher levels of

depressive symptoms. We also found that higher relationship

satisfaction was associated with higher levels of support for

family policy, particularly for men. At higher levels of rela-

tionship satisfaction, men and women had similarly high

levels of support for family policy, while at lower levels,

women’s support for family policy was significantly higher.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic likely amplified facets

of social inequality, which is especially concerning when con-

sidering the large socioeconomic gaps prior to the pandemic.

Implications: Therapists, researchers, and policy makers

should examine how relationship satisfaction may have chan-

ged during the pandemic because relationship satisfaction is

Received: 13 May 2021Revised: 8 December 2021Accepted: 26 February 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12705

© 2022 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2022;71:1367–1384. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 1367

linked to child and adult well-being and relationship dissolu-

tion. Further, the link between relationship satisfaction and

support for family policy deserves further scrutiny.

KEYWORDS

conservation of resources, COVID-19, family policy, relationship

satisfaction

The coronavirus pandemic, unprecedented in scope and nearly universal in influence, has left

few if any individuals or societies untouched. While the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

will play out over upcoming years and decades, the virus is now in nearly every country, with

nearly seven million attributable deaths among more than half a billion cases, as of this writing

(Johns Hopkins University, n.d.). Beyond the dire health situation precipitated by the virus,

research suggests that responses and restrictions to the virus have also triggered a massive

increase in global poverty, with 71 million people estimated to be pushed into deep poverty in

2020, the first increase in global poverty in over 2 decades (United Nations, 2020b). Meanwhile,

the pandemic has also sown the seeds of a global mental health crisis (United Nations, 2020a)

and may lead to a global economic recession (The World Bank, 2021) that would likely require

years and a global commitment to sustainable economic systems to recover.

Within these unique global circumstances, knowledge of how families respond to challenging

health, economic, and social circumstances is critical because they are a key component to achiev-

ing sustainable and prosperous societies and a crucial institution for developing and maintaining

the foundations of adult and child well-being on which such societies rely (Richardson

et al., 2020). However, we know comparatively little about how families are faring during the

COVID-19 crisis (Pietromonaco & Overall, 2021).Nor do we know much about how families fal-

ter or flourish during pandemics more generally. Of course, there is no reason to believe families’

experiences with COVID-19 will be uniform. Those couples and families with access to significant

resources in terms of housing, access to mental and physical health care, and social capital,

among others, may be negotiating the pandemic quite well whereasthose without these resources

are likely struggling (Pietromonaco &Overall, 2021; United Nations, 2020a). Additionally, while

COVID-19’s effect on family functioning is unclear, much is known about how pandemics in gen-

eral influence the broader public and various sociodemographic groups (Bish & Michie, 2010;

Jones & Salathé, 2009;Perrinetal.,2009; Reynolds et al., 2008).

This study aims to contribute to a nascent literature on knowledge of how families were

affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on data collected as part of a larger study of

72 countries, we employed data on 734 married and cohabiting parents of children under 18 in

the United States to examine how relationship satisfaction changed during the pandemic and

assessed whether these changes were similar across sociodemographic groups. We also explored,

for the first time, how relationship satisfaction may be linked to support for family policy.

Understanding relationship dynamics may help assess the need for social, educational, and

other health interventions as well as inform reactions to future pandemics. Further, the foray

into linking relationship satisfaction and support for family policy provides a new avenue of

future research for family and family policy scholars as we explore how to formulate and

improve government programs designed to strengthen families and ensure sustainable societies.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Stress is a prominent and widespread feature of the COVID-19 pandemic (Boyraz &

Legros, 2020). The pandemic has stressed health care delivery systems (e.g., Tanne et al., 2020),

1368 FAMILY RELATIONS