2008 Volume 22 Issue 2 Pages 119-128
The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between marital satisfaction of husbands and wives in their middle age, and discrepancies between ideals and realities of sharing of housework and child-raising. A questionnaire was administered to married couples having children in either elementary school or university, and responses from 775 couples, in which both the husband and wife answered the questionnaire, were analyzed. Couples with children in elementary school were defined as couples in their child-raising period, and couples with children in university were defined as couples in their middle age. Analysis results indicated that wives wished they had less housework and child-raising responsibilities. In contrast husbands wished that they had more responsibilities in these areas.
Marital satisfaction of both of husbands and wives was found negatively to correlate with the discrepancy between their reported ideal amounts of housework and child rearing and actual amounts. Higher satisfaction was related to a smaller discrepancy. There was a weak negative relationship found between marital satisfaction and the attitudes towards the traditional sexual division of labor for husbands in the child-rearing group. Furthermore it was found marital satisfaction for husbands in the child-rearing group was higher for men who reported a low discrepancy and whose wives also reported a low discrepancy. In the older group, the wives reported discrepancies were not found to influence the marital satisfaction of their husbands.
