Who Will Attend? Characteristics of Couples and Individuals in Marriage Education

Abstract

There are two purposes of this marriage education marketing study: (1) to compare the self-reported intra- and interpersonal qualities of 121 married couples (n = 242 individuals) attending a marriage education program with 46 married couples (n = 92 individuals) who were contacted through marketing promotional materials to attend the program but did not participate and (2) to determine if intra- and/or interpersonal qualities would predict the likelihood of marriage education attendance versus nonattendance. Results showed that compared with program nonparticipants, program participants reported lower levels of self-esteem, marital communication quality, marital commitment, marital satisfaction, family strengths, less consensus and intimacy, less fulfillment of marriage expectations, and increased levels of marital conflict. Levels of religiosity and fusion were the same for participants and nonparticipants. Wald logistic regression analysis indicated communication was the only significant predictor of marriage education participation. Implications for marriage education programming and practitioners are outlined.

KEYWORDS:

• family life education
• marketing
• marriage education
• training

Notes

SD, standard deviation.

^a Absolute difference in couple partners' ages.

^b Categorical variable (1 = same response for couple partners, 2 = different response for couple partners).

^c Categorical variable (1 = first marriage for both partners; 2 = one divorcee, one first marriage; 3 = both partners divorced; 4 = other).

^d Categorical variable (1 = both employed, 2 = one partner unemployed, 3 = both partners unemployed, 4 = other).

*p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01.

^a Estimated mean controlling for ethnicity and marital status.

*p < .05, **p < .01.

^a Participant n = 241.

^b Participant n = 229, nonparticipant n = 91.

^c Nonparticipant n = 91.

**p < .01, ***p < .001.