每下愈況或漸入佳境？：夫妻婚姻品質之變化與相互影響性

Worse or Better? : Trajectories of Marital Quality and Their Mutual Influence among Taiwanese Married Couples

本研究目的在於探討台灣夫妻婚姻品質各自的變化軌跡及其影響因素，並探討婚姻品質變動軌跡在夫妻間的相互關連性和影響性，以及是否因不同婚齡而有所差異。婚姻品質包括充實感、後悔感和婚姻品質總和三種測量。研究對象為台北地區328對不同婚齡，連續三年參與追蹤研究的夫妻。採取夫妻對偶成長曲線多層次模式，將夫妻個人隨時間變動共變項、個人不隨時間變動共變項，及夫妻家庭特性變項納入分析。結果發現，僅考慮時間因素時，夫妻充實感、後悔感和婚姻品質總和均隨時間變動，充實感與婚姻品質隨時間下降，但後悔 感隨時間上升。夫妻的身心健康、衝突知覺對夫妻婚姻品質的變化有顯著影響。夫妻的教育、主觀經濟生活、丈夫父母同住和子女數分別對不同婚齡的夫妻婚姻品質的變動有顯著影響，但不同婚齡家庭中，有顯著影響的變項並不一致。夫妻婚姻品質的變動軌跡有差異，且夫妻變動軌跡之間存在相當強的相互關連性與影響性。同時，夫妻婚姻品質變動軌跡因婚齡而不同，婚齡較短的夫妻婚姻品質維持平穩，婚齡較長的夫妻婚姻品質卻明顯下降，與國外研究結果並不相同，可能反映臺灣夫妻的世代差異。

This paper explores couples' trajectories of marital quality and their determinants among Taiwanese families, examines the inter-relationship and mutual influence between wives and husbands' trajectories, and tests the differences in couple's trajectories among various marital-duration groups. The measurement of marital quality includes satisfaction, regret, and total quality. A total of 328 marital couples in the Taipei area having consecutive three waves of data are analyzed. Dyadic growth-curve multilevel analysis is employed to analyze the trajectory and the effect of individual time-varying and time-invariant covariates and family common variables on changes in marital quality. Marital satisfaction and total marital quality show a linear decline, but marital regret shows a linear increase in trajectories, for both wives and husbands. Changes in the trajectory of marital quality vary by their mental and physical health and perceived conflict, and they also vary by level of education, subjective economic life, living with husband's parent, and number of children in various marital duration groups. The trajectories of marital quality differ between wives and husbands, but show a strong inter-relationship and the mutual influence of a couple. Finally, trajectories of marital quality and its relationship and the mutual influence of a couple shows an inconsistent pattern among couple groups with different marital durations. Whereas the marital quality does not significantly decline for new married couples in the first three years, the marital quality shows a significant decrease for couples with marriage durations longer than three years.