Relationship quality and support for family policyduring the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective:We examined how relationship satisfactionchanged during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, aswell as how relationship satisfaction related to public pol-icy support.Background:Conservation of resources (COR) theorysuggests that societal-level stressors (such as a globalpandemic) threaten familial and individual resources,straining couple relationships. Relationship satisfaction isin turn linked with important individual, familial, andsocietal outcomes, necessitating research on how COVID-19 impacted this facet of relationships.Method:Drawing from an international project onCOVID-19 and family life, participants included 734 mar-ried and cohabiting American parents of children under18 years of age.Results:Findings revealed relationship satisfaction declinedmoderately compared to retrospective reports of relationshipsatisfaction prior to the pandemic. This decline was more pre-cipitous for White individuals, women, parents less involvedin their children’s lives, and those reporting higher levels ofdepressive symptoms. We also found that higher relationshipsatisfaction was associated with higher levels of support forfamily policy, particularly for men. At higher levels of rela-tionship satisfaction, men and women had similarly highlevels 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 facetsof social inequality, which is especially concerning when con-sidering the large socioeconomic gaps prior to the pandemic. Implications:Therapists, researchers, and policy makersshould examine how relationship satisfaction may have chan-ged during the pandemic because relationship satisfaction is linked to child and adult well-being and relationship dissolu-tion. Further, the link between relationship satisfaction andsupport for family policy deserves further scrutiny.