Category: Relationships

Almost everyone wants to get married eventually — but the reasons have changed.

Marriage is now more about children than an institution based on gender specialisation, a new study concludes.

Intensive investment in children is now the drive behind modern marriage, rather than economic necessity.

Professor Shelly Lundberg, a demographer and one of the study’s authors, said:

“In a gender-specialized economy, where men and women are playing very different productive roles, you need the long-term commitment to protect the vulnerable party, who in this case is the woman.

But when women’s educational attainment increased and surpassed that of men, and women became more committed to jobs and careers, the kind of economic disparity that supported a division of labor in the household eroded.”

But marriage means different things to different parts of society, Professor Lundberg explained:

“What we see is a striking adherence to traditional marriage patterns among the college educated and those with higher professional degrees.

While marriage rates have declined consistently over time, they have declined far more among people whose education level is high school or some college.”

More educated and higher income mothers also spend more time with their children than they did 30 years ago:

“In terms of time and money, the well-educated, higher-income parents have increased their investments in children much more than those with lower incomes.

They have the know-how and the resources and they expect to help their children become economically successful in a way that may seem out of reach for parents with much lower levels of resources.”

Despite all these changes, most men and women still do marry eventually:

“If you look at the fraction of people 50 years old who have ever married, the differences between the education groups are very, very small.

What is really distinctive is the timing of marriage and the very high proportion of women with a high school diploma or some college who have their first child either on their own or within a cohabitating relationship, which is extremely rare among people with a college degree or higher.

The timing is extraordinarily suggestive.

Almost everyone wants to get married eventually.

The question is when, and do you wait until you get married before you have a child?”

The study was published in the journal The Future of Children (Lundberg & Pollak, 2015).

Marriage image from Shutterstock

There’s a relationship advantage for men who do the chores.

Men who take on their fair share of chores around the house tend to have a better sex life, new research shows.

Men who contribute to the housework, psychologists have found, have more sex and it is more satisfying.

The data from German couples directly contradicts the results of a 2012 US study, which found the opposite.

But the earlier study didn’t ring true to Professor Matt Johnson, one of the new study’s authors.

Professor Johnson, who was previously a couple’s therapists, said:

“In any relationship, the amount of housework is going to mean something different based on the couple’s context, based on their own expectations for what each partner should be doing, and their comparison levels of what happens with other couples they know.”

Data from 1,338 German couples showed that when men perceived they did their fair share, the couple had more sex and it was more satisfying.

But could there be a fundamental difference between US and German couples?

Professor Johnson said:

“There are cultural differences but if the logic held from the prior studies, we would have expected to have a more pronounced negative impact of housework on sexuality in Germany because it’s a bit more traditional.

But that wasn’t the case at all.”

Of course, we can’t tell that doing a fair share of housework causes better sex from this research, but the link is fascinating and certainly questions the earlier, widely reported study.

Professor Johnson said:

“Rather than avoiding chores in the hopes of having more sex, as prior research would imply, men are likely to experience more frequent and satisfying passion for both partners between the sheets when they simply do their fair share.”

The study was published in the Journal of Family Psychology (Johnson et al., 2015).

Couple image from Shutterstock

Poor parenting still resonating with people now in their 60s as much as the death of a loved one.

Children of parents who are warmer and less controlling grow up happier, a new study finds.

In contrast, parents who are overly controlling tend to bring up children with worse mental well-being.

Dr Mai Stafford, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We found that people whose parents showed warmth and responsiveness had higher life satisfaction and better mental wellbeing throughout early, middle and late adulthood.”

The study tracked 5,362 people from their birth in 1946.

Over sixty years later, 2,000 of them completed a series of follow-up surveys including one asking about how controlling their parents were.

Controlling parents did not allow their children to make their own decisions and fostered too much dependence on them.

Controlling parents also invaded their children’s privacy and didn’t allow them to have their own opinions.

The negative effect of controlling parents was still felt by people in their 60s.

The researchers likened the damaging effect to the death of a loved one.

The other problematic factor — lack of parental warmth — makes it difficult to have a strong bond with parents.

A strong emotional attachment to parents provides a better base from which children can explore the world.

The study was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology (Stafford et al., 2015).

Parent image from Shutterstock

People feel emotionally close to others displaying this type of smile.

A ‘Duchenne smile’ is a powerful way of striking up a new relationship, a new study finds.

People are highly tuned to the Duchenne smile, which involves upturned lips and crinkly eyes.

And they can easily spot a fake smile, which tends to involve only the mouth and not the eyes.

The research tested how much people are aware of each other’s emotions, whether negative or positive.

It found that people were more aware of positive emotions in other people than negative.

It also found that a genuine smile was a strong sign of cooperation and affiliation.

People felt emotionally closer to strangers who showed positive emotions.

The positive emotion that was particularly attractive was awe.

Dr Belinda Campos, who led the research, said:

“Our findings provide new evidence of the significance of positive emotions in social settings and highlight the role that positive emotions display in the development of new social connections.

People are highly attuned to the positive emotions of others and can be more attuned to others’ positive emotions than negative emotions.”

The study was published in the journal Motivation and Emotion (Campos et al., 2015).

→ Read on: 10 Hidden Benefits of Smiling

Image credit: greekadman

Digit ratio signals how much men will listen attentively, be complimentary and compromise.

Men whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers — a low digit ratio — are, on average, nicer towards women.

The new research suggests this may also explain why men with a bigger difference in length between the two fingers also tend to have more children.

In general, men’s ring fingers are longer than their index fingers.

For women, there’s usually less difference between index and ring finger.

This difference is caused by hormone exposure in the womb.

The study, which is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, had 155 men and women record their social interactions over almost three weeks (Moskowitz et al., 2015).

Each time they spoke to someone for more than five minutes, afterwards they checked off a list of behaviours they performed.

These behaviours indicated how quarrelsome or how agreeable they were being during each interaction.

The results showed that men with longer ring fingers in comparison to their index fingers were around 30% more agreeable — but only when interacting with women.

No difference was seen for women and for men talking to other men.

Professor Debbie Moskowitz, the study’s first author, said:

“When with women, men with smaller ratios were more likely to listen attentively, smile and laugh, compromise or compliment the other person.”

Professor Simon Young, another of the study’s authors said:

“It is fascinating to see that moderate variations of hormones before birth can actually influence adult behaviour in a selective way.”

The results may explain why, as previous studies have shown, men with longer ring fingers in comparison to their index fingers tend to have more children.

Professor Moskowitz said:

“Our research suggests they have more harmonious relationships with women; these behaviors support the formation and maintenance of relationships with women.

This might explain why they have more children on average.”

Measure your digit ratio

Here’s how to measure your digit ratio.

It’s the length of your index finger (2D) divided by the length of your ring finger (4D) as shown below.

The average digit ratio for men is 0.947 and for women it is 0.965.

Man’s hands image from Shutterstock

Are two mothers better than one?

Children who are raised by same-sex parents do just as well in social development, education and emotionally as those raised by heterosexual couples, an Australian review of the research finds.

In Australia 11% of gay men and 33% of lesbians have children–figures which will likely increase as barriers are reduced.

The review of the research was conduced by Deb Dempsey and commissioned by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (Dempsey, 2014).

The research certainly does not support the view that children brought up by same-sex parents are harmed as a result.

Two mothers

Quite the contrary, children brought up by lesbians may benefit from having two mothers–often reporting better relationships with their children and displaying higher levels of involvement.

The reason for this could be…

“…due to the “double dose” of “feminine” parenting. Just as heterosexual mothers usually have greater care-giving responsibilities and display greater parenting skill than heterosexual fathers, lesbian mothers appear to bring this gendered tendency to their parenting relationships.” (Dempsey, 2014).

While the review was broadly positive, some worries were expressed: children of same-sex parents are more likely to report concerns about bullying or other abuse based on the sexuality of their parents.

Set against this, the review finds that while there is fear of this type of bullying or abuse, it is not often actually experienced.

Equitable but not identical

Same-sex couples are also more likely to set an equitable example for their children. They are more likely to share the housework and to avoid privileging work over home-life.

While some studies have found negative effects on children of having same-sex parents (e.g. Regnerus, 2012), these have not taken into account the higher rates of separation amongst same-sex couples.

Experts no longer try to claim that outcomes of same-sex parenting are identical to heterosexual couples– along with some potential advantages comes the social stigma and higher rates of separation.

Nevertheless, a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics points out:

“Over the past decade, 11 countries have recognized marriage equality and, thus, allow marriage between 2 partners of the same gender: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden. There has been no evidence that children in these countries have experienced difficulties as a result of these social changes.” (Perrin et al., 2013)

Image credit: Caitlin Childs