Childlessness and Marital Satisfaction

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Abstract
Utilizing a stratified random sample of respondents married after the age of 21, this article estimates models of marital satisfaction for theoretically relevant groups of women—voluntarily childless wives, undecided wives, postponing wives, and mothers. Results indicate that all three groups of childless wives have higher mean levels of marital satisfaction than do mothers. More important, the results also suggest that the processes generating marital satisfaction for wives differ depending not only on the presence or absence of children, but also on future childbearing intentions among the childless. Specifically, models of marital satisfaction for the voluntarily childless and undecideds are quite different from those for postponers and mothers. These results are discussed in terms of differences in marital structures and differences in the implied systems of reciprocities characterizing marital interaction and bargaining.