IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jfamec/v28y2007i1p89-104.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Two Sides of the Same Coin? The Differing Roles of Assets and Consumer Debt in Marriage

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey Dew

Abstract

This study examines whether assets and consumer debts relate to change in marital satisfaction and conflict in opposing ways or in independent ways. It also tests whether these relationships are direct or mediated. Using a nationally representative longitudinal sample, the results indicate that assets and consumer debt influence change in marital outcomes in mostly independent rather than complementary ways. Consistent with prior literature, assets work indirectly by decreasing feelings of economic pressure. Consumer debt, however, directly predicts changes in marital conflict, even after controlling for variables in the family stress model. Debts also act indirectly by decreasing depression once economic pressure is included in the model. This unexpected suppressor effect suggests that the meaning of debts may not be straightforward. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey Dew, 2007. "Two Sides of the Same Coin? The Differing Roles of Assets and Consumer Debt in Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 89-104, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:28:y:2007:i:1:p:89-104
    DOI: 10.1007/s10834-006-9051-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10834-006-9051-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10834-006-9051-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferber, Robert & Lee, Lucy Chao, 1980. "Asset Accumulation in Early Married Life," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(5), pages 1173-1188, December.
    2. Drazen Prelec & George Loewenstein, 1998. "The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 4-28.
    3. Sondra Beverly & Amanda Moore & Mark Schreiner, 2001. "A Framework of Asset-Accumulation Stages and Strategies," Development and Comp Systems 0109004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Linda Waite, 1995. "Does marriage matter?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(4), pages 483-507, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthew Painter & Jonathan Vespa, 2012. "The Role of Cohabitation in Asset and Debt Accumulation During Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 491-506, December.
    2. Miriam Marcén & Marina Morales, 2019. "Live together: does culture matter?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 671-713, June.
    3. Yizhao Jiang, 2022. "The Influence of Payment Method: Do Consumers Pay More with Mobile Payment?," Papers 2210.14631, arXiv.org.
    4. Audrey Light & Yoshiaki Omori, 2009. "Economic Incentives and Family Formation," Working Papers 09-08, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Felici, Marco & Kenny, Geoff & Friz, Roberta, 2023. "Consumer savings behaviour at low and negative interest rates," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    6. White, Tiffany Barnett & Novak, Thomas P. & Hoffman, Donna L., 2014. "No Strings Attached: When Giving It Away Versus Making Them Pay Reduces Consumer Information Disclosure," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 184-195.
    7. Jae‐Do Song, 2023. "Excessive banking preference in emissions trading," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 448-458, January.
    8. Goswami, Indranil & Urminsky, Oleg, 2021. "Don’t fear the meter: How longer time limits bias managers to prefer hiring with flat fee compensation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 42-58.
    9. Missinne, Sarah & Colman, Elien & Bracke, Piet, 2013. "Spousal influence on mammography screening: A life course perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 63-70.
    10. He, Haonan & Wang, Shanyong, 2019. "Cost-benefit associations in consumer inventory problem with uncertain benefit," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-284.
    11. Davi B. Costa, 2021. "Benefits of marriage as a search strategy," Papers 2108.04885, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    12. Malmendier, Ulrike M. & Della Vigna, Stefano, 2002. "Overestimating Self-Control: Evidence from the Health Club Industry," Research Papers 1880, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    13. Lijun Chen & Di Qi & Dali Yang, 2020. "The Urbanization Paradox: Parental Absence and Child Development in China - an Empirical Analysis Based on the China Family Panel Studies Survey," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(2), pages 593-608, April.
    14. Schneider, Andreas, 2019. "Deterrence Theory in Paraguay: Exploring Fraud and Violation of Trust Cases," MPRA Paper 102204, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. O’Leary, Nigel & Li, Ian W. & Gupta, Prashant & Blackaby, David, 2020. "Wellbeing trajectories around life events in Australia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 499-509.
    16. Rita Holm Adzovie, 2020. "Attaining Satisfaction in Marriage: A Study of Marital Satisfaction Levels of Married Christians in a Developing Country," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 12(1), pages 160-172, October.
    17. Bindu K. Nambiar & Kartikeya Bolar, 2023. "Factors influencing customer preference of cardless technology over the card for cash withdrawals: an extended technology acceptance model," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(1), pages 58-73, March.
    18. Mewse, Avril J. & Lea, Stephen E.G. & Wrapson, Wendy, 2010. "First steps out of debt: Attitudes and social identity as predictors of contact by debtors with creditors," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1021-1034, December.
    19. Kulati, Ellam & Myck, Michał & Pasini, Giacomo, 2023. "Temporal discounting in later life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 87-101.
    20. Krämer, Jan & Wiewiorra, Lukas, 2012. "Beyond the flat rate bias: The flexibility effect in tariff choice," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 29-39.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:28:y:2007:i:1:p:89-104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.