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. 2022 Jun 29:13:903276.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.903276. eCollection 2022.

A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis on Marital Satisfaction of Chinese Couples

Fengzhan Li  1 , Chen Chen  1 , Jinrui Wang  2 , Haiyun Peng  2 , Lin Wu  1 , Lei Ren  1 , Lei Song  1 , Yinchuan Jin  1 , Qun Yang  1
Affiliations

A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis on Marital Satisfaction of Chinese Couples

Fengzhan Li et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the changing trend of Chinese couples' marital satisfaction and its relationship with social changes.

Methods: A cross-temporal meta-analysis was performed on 118 original studies (n = 31,909) reporting marital satisfaction of Chinese couples from 1994 to 2020, primarily using correlation analysis and regression analysis.

Results: (1) Overall, the marital satisfaction of Chinese couples showed a downward trend over time. (2) Men's marital satisfaction displayed almost no change, while women's marital satisfaction had a more obvious downward trend. (3) Changes in macrosocial factors (per capita consumption expenditure, housing prices, old-age dependency ratio, and divorce rate) could significantly predict the downward trend of marital satisfaction, especially for women.

Conclusion: In the past 27 years, the overall marital satisfaction level of Chinese couples has shown a downward trend, and there are gendered differences, which may be related to changes in the socioeconomic and cultural environments.

Keywords: couples; cross-temporal meta-analysis; cultural environments; marital satisfaction; social changes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow chart for the screening of studies.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scatter plot between marital satisfaction and years.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Scatter plot of male marital satisfaction and years.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Scatter plot of female marital satisfaction and years.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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