University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF GHANA GENDER ROLE IDEOLOGY AND MARITAL SATISFACTION. THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF MARITAL ROLE. A STUDY AMONG MARRIED INDIVIDUALS IN GHANA. BY ADENYO PHILIP OFFEI 10250584 THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY (MPHIL) DEGREE IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY JUNE, 2015 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DECLARATION I hereby declare that except for reference to other people’s works which have been duly acknowledged, this thesis titled “Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction: The Mediating Effect of Marital Role. A Study among Married Individuals in Ghana” is my own original work and presented to the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, for the award of an M.PHIL. Degree in Social Psychology. I also wish to declare further that this work has never in its present form, or in any other form been presented to any other examining body. ................................................. PHILIP OFFEI ADENYO (Student) Date............/............../2015 This thesis has been submitted for examination with the approval of: .................................................... DR. ADOTE ANUM (Principal Supervisor) Date............/............../2015 .............................................. PROF. CHARITY AKOTIA (Second Supervisor) Date............/............../2015 i University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEDICATION This work is dedicated first to the almighty God who saw me throughout this course and to Ms. Gifty Adjoa Amissah for financing this entire program. ii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge Prof. Charity Akotia and Dr. Adote Anum my supervisors for their immense contribution, revision and time throughout the process of writing this thesis. I also thank my family and friends who helped me in one way or the other especially Mr. Justice Addo and his Wife, Mrs. Akwaley Otoo, Ms. Agata Bokor, Mrs. Akua Tutu, Evans Ahotor, Felix Agor, Solomon Drah, Daniel Fordjor and Feikoab Parimah. To all my colleagues who supported me, I am so grateful. To Mr. John Enoch Dotse and Rev. Divine Akuvie, I say thank you for your encouragement. To God be the glory for the great things He is doing in my life. iii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ABSTRACT The cross-sectional survey examined the relationship gender role ideology (traditional and modern) and marital satisfaction among married couples in Ghana. The study also examined the mediating effect of marital role (instrumental and relational) in the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. The effect of Religiosity on the level of marital satisfaction was also examined. Two hundred and fifty two (252) married individuals fully completed and submitted questionnaires on the variables of the study. The Pearson product moment correlation and hierarchical multiple regression were the statistical tools used to analyze the data. Results indicated that gender role ideology had a direct positive relationship with marital satisfaction such that traditional gender role ideology explained more variance in marital satisfaction than modern gender role ideology. In addition, religiosity was found to positively predict marital satisfaction and this was found to be high for modern couples than traditional couples. Also, the mediation analyses revealed that both instrumental and relational marital roles fully mediate the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. The mediation effect was however found to be stronger for instrumental roles than the relational roles. Results were discussed in the frameworks of life course theory, social exchange theory and other research findings. iv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration.............................................................................................................. i Dedication............................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgement................................................................................................... iii Abstract.................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents..................................................................................................... v List of Figures…………………………………………………………………... viii List of Tables……………………………………………………………………… ix CHAPTER ONE..................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 1 Background of the Study.......................................................................................... 1 Problem Statement................................................................................................... 9 Aims and Objectives................................................................................................ 11 Relevance of the Study............................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER TWO………………………………………………………………… 13 LIRERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………. 13 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 13 Theoretical Framework………………………………………………………….. 13 Life Course Theory………………………………………………………………. 13 Social Exchange Theory…………………………………………………………. 15 Review of Related Study………………………………………………………… 16 Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction …………………………………. 16 Instrumental Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction ……………………………… 27 Relational Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction ………………………………. 31 Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction ……………………………………………… 32 Statements of Hypotheses…………………………………………………………. 35 Conceptual Model…………………………………………………………………. 36 Key Study Variables 36 Operation a Definition of Terms………………………………………………….. 37 v University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER THREE……………………………………………………………… 37 METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………………. 37 Introduction………………………………………………………………………... 37 Research Settings………………………………………………………………… 37 Population………………………………………………………………………… 37 Sampling Technique and Sample Size…………………………………………… 39 Measures………………………………………………………………………… 39 Participants and Demographic Data…………………………………………..... 42 Research Design………………………………………………………………… 42 Pilot Study ……………………………………………………………………… 43 Procedure for Main Study ……………………………………………………. 44 Scoring…………………………………………………………………………. 45 Ethical Considerations…………………………………………………………. 45 CHAPTER FOUR……………………………………………………………… 47 RESULTS AND PRESENTATION…………………………………………... 47 Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 47 Preliminary Analysis……………………………………………………………. 47 Normal Distribution of Variables………………………………………………. 48 Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Analysis………………………………… 49 Hypothesis Testing……………………………………………………………… 50 Hypothesis 1……………………………………………………………………. 50 Hypothesis 2…………………………………………………………………… 52 Hypothesis 3a…………………………………………………………………… 54 Hypothesis 3c…………………………………………………………………… 57 Hypothesis 3b……………………………………………………………………. 59 Hypothesis 3d……………………………………………………………………. 61 Summary of Findings…………………………………………………………… 63 vi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER 5………………………………………………………………………. 64 DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………….. 64 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 64 Relationship between Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction……………. 64 Relationship between Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction……………………….. 68 Relationship between Gender Role Ideology, Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction 71 Practical implication of the Study………………………………………………….. 73 Limitation of the Study…………………………………………………………….. 76 Recommendations………………………………………………………………….. 77 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 78 References………………………………………………………………………….. 80 Appendices ……………………………………………………………………….. 107 vii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh List of Figures Fig. 1 Conceptual Framework................................................................................... 35 Fig. 2 Observed Model of Relationship between Traditional Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction.......................................................................................... 35 Fig. 3 Observed Model of Relationship between Modern Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction.......................................................................................... 35 viii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh List of Tables Table 1 Summary of Demographic Characteristics of Sample................................ 48 Table 2 Summary Of Descriptive Statistics, Reliability Analysis, Skewness and Kurtosis of the Variables in the study.......................................................... 49 Table 3 Pearson Product Moment Correlation between all the Variables in the Study............................................................................................................ 49 Table 4 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis for Dimensions of Gender Role Ideology as Predictors of Marital Satisfaction Controlling for Demographic Factors.................................................................................... 51 Table 5 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of Marital Satisfaction (MS) Controlling for Demographic Factors.................................................................................. 53 Table 6 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of instrumental Marital Role (IMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors................................................................................. 54 Table 7 Summary of Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation Effect of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) on the relationship between TGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors......................................................... 55 Table 8 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of Relational Marital Role (RMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors.......................................................... 56 Table 9 Summary of Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation effect of Relational Marital Role on the relationship between TGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors................................................................................... 57 Table10 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role as Predictor of Marital Satisfaction Controlling for Demographic Factors.......................................................................................................... 58 Table11 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as Predictor of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors.................................................................................. 58 Table12 Summary of Hierarchical regression for the mediation effect of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) on the relationship between MGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors.............................................................................. 59 ix University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table13 Summary of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as Predictor of Relational Marital Role (RMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors.................................................................................. 60 Table14 Summary of Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation Effect Of Relational Marital Role On The Relationship Between MGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors................................................................................... 61 x University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER 1 Introduction Marriage is the institution recognized for the establishment and maintenance of family life in every known culture (Brown, 1991; Nunkuya, 2003). Family life however comes with a set of roles and responsibilities that should be performed in attainment of marital harmony. For instance, roles such as taking out trash, cooking, cleaning the dish, child care, washing etcetera are typical female responsibilities. Meanwhile, providing for the home, trimming the hedge, mechanical repairs etcetera are typical of men (Coltrane, 2000). Despite the universality of the institution of marriage, performance of these roles varies culturally. In some cultures such as the individualist western culture, these roles are shared and performed by the couple due to high egalitarian beliefs (Jain, 2014). Unlike the west, marriage in most African setting (e.g. Ghana) is largely traditional (Nunkuya, 2003). The roles expected of men and women in marriage are mostly socially prescribed (part of the socialization process) and form part of the individual‘s belief system and worldview (Adomako Ampofo, 2001; Gender Policy for Ghana, 2011:3). The Ghanaian Culture and Marriage The Ghanaian culture is not monolithic and homogenous as many of the ethnic and cultural groups are influenced by different set of cultures, religious doctrines and ceremonial rituals (Gender Policy for Ghana, 2011). In spite of this, marriage still remains central to all the ethnic groups because the continuity of the family and patriarchal system is propagated through the union that exists between couples. In addition, the internalization of the culture (values, beliefs and worldviews) and formation of later relationship behaviours begin from the family as the primary agent of socialization (Goodwin 1999). 1 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Generally, there are three types of marriage recognized in Ghana: marriage under ordinance, marriage under customary law and marriage of the Mohammedans ordinance (Kuenyehia & Aboagye, 2004). Marriage under ordinance is monogamous and is associated with the western system (Christian religion) while the other two are polygamous marriages practiced under the traditional system. Despite these ethnic diversities, patterns of marriage rites over the years have become typical of almost all, if not all tribal traditions in Ghana (Adonu, 2005). Traditionally, marriage in Ghana involves the two lineages (Gyekye, 1996). Rites performed involve exchange of items (e.g. drinks, money, kola etc.) and an intense celebration to cheer up the couple. These rights bind the two lineages together and serve as the basis for social legitimacy for the marriage in rural and urban settings. This however is atypical of the western way of marriage represented in literature (Adonu, 2005). In the past three decades however, marriage and gender roles in marriage have undergone considerable changes globally and specifically in the Ghanaian cultural setting (Akotia & Anum, 2012). The roles of the extended family and parents in selection of spouse and other marital arrangements have being greatly undermined. Again the roles couples play in the marriage have also undergone changes. This can largely be attributed to major forces of modernization such as technology, education, religion, and mass media which have penetrated and significantly influenced the Ghanaian culture (Nukunya, 2003). The Ghanaian culture in view of these external forces has undergone what can be described as ―cultural hybridization‖ with a significant drift towards western values while maintaining few traditional ones. For instance, it is increasingly common these days to secure additional documentary evidence of the marriage through a church wedding or a court deed after 2 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh customary marriage (Adonu, 2005). This was not the pattern of marital arrangement in the past. In effect, the fulfillment of the psychological needs and performance of marital roles in the marriage has lost its value to material strivings. This is known to be a precursor of marital challenges in Ghana (Klomegah, 1997). Marital Roles Gender roles in marriage are ―the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed needs are satisfied‖ (Reiter, 1975 cited in Janus 2008: 5). In most rural and urban families, division of labour remains largely unequal. House chores are exclusively the responsibility of women and girls (Gender Policy of Ghana, 2011). For instance among the Akan and Ga in Ghana, women normally assume the basic domestic and childcare roles (Schwimmer, 2009). Women now spend 20 hours per week on housework as compared to men who spend 5 hours per week (World Bank Gender Review, 2002). However, there have being some positive improvement in ensuring gender equality in Ghana in recent times. These include affirmative action policy for women in Government, improved access to credit facilities, paid maternity leaves (CEDAW, 2005). Others include feminization of organizations, global economic demands and female empowerment have necessitated the increased participation of women in the labour force (Saginak & Saginak, 2005). This created conditions that deviate from the traditional male breadwinner-female homemaker roles that Ghanaian traditional society was used to in the past. Notwithstanding, the choice to either redefine or endorse these routine socially prescribed roles depends on the beliefs couples hold. In Nigeria for instance, women have become more 3 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh involved in regular employment but have still maintained their traditional role of performing housework due to their strong traditional cultural tenets (Etuk, Inyang & Etuk, 2011). This is not so different in Ghana. In the Ghanaian system, marital relationship was maintained by obligatory commitment instead of commitment based on emotional affinity and relationship strength (Yelsma & Athapily, 1988). With the strong western influences on the Ghanaian culture in recent time, much is not known on this trend in view of the beliefs of the proper roles of men and women in marriage (gender role ideology). There is therefore a paucity of research on the mediating effect of the construct marital role in the psychological literature that seeks to offer explanation for the association between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. In this study, the two dimensions of marital roles: instrumental and relational roles according to Franzoi, Davis and Young (1995) were investigated. Instrumental marital role was extensively researched as a single variable yet little attention was given to the relational behaviours which elicit actual affective responses known as relational marital role or ―emotion work” (Erickson, 2005). Both dimensions of marital roles are very important to achieve couple‘s satisfaction. This current study therefore examined the complex relationships between the two dimensions of marital role, gender role ideology and their effect on marital satisfaction among married individuals in Ghana. Gender Role Ideology Gender role ideology (GRI) according to Williams and Best (1990) is an individual‘s beliefs regarding the proper roles for men and women in society. These beliefs were reported to have emerged from human adaption to environmental conditions –economic, political and technological (Reid & Hammersley, 2000). In effect, three types of gender role ideologies have been identified. They are traditional, modern/egalitarian and transitional gender role 4 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ideologies. The major and commonly studied ones are the traditional and modern gender role ideologies which are at the extremes of the continuum. Those who hold traditional gender role ideology believe that people‘s gender roles should be defined strictly by their gender (Kim, 1992). Men therefore are expected to be breadwinners with a paid work while women should be home makers. Thus, the spheres of work for men and women ought to be separate (Levant et al, 2003). This gendered segregation of roles is normally guided by well-defined traditional gender norms especially in patriarchal societies where male hegemony, female subordination and filial petty are dominant cultural phenomena (Xu & Lai, 2004). At the other end of the continuum are individuals who hold the egalitarian or modern gender role ideology. They believe in gender equality and flexibility (Barry & Beitel, 2006). Individuals with egalitarian or modern gender role ideology assert that power and roles should be distributed equally between men and women such that women should equally identify with the same spheres of work as men (Barry & Beitel, 2006). With recent changes in the social structure (e.g. modernization, women labour force participation, prolonged life expectancy, reduced fertility), male-breadwinner and female-homemaker roles are less rewarding for contemporary couples (Kim, 1992). In effect, role negotiation and role redefinitions rather than gender role stereotyping have now become the approach that couples often consider (Lye & Biblarz, 1990). In the West, several studies have found the two dimensions of gender role ideology to account for variances in marital satisfaction. While some studies found traditional gender role ideology as salient in fostering inter-spousal congruence and marital satisfaction (Greenstein, 5 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1996; Kaufman, 2000), others found egalitarian gender role ideology to be highly linked to marital satisfaction (Jain, 2014; Lavee & Katz, 2002; Xu & Lai, 2004). The argument is that, since the construction of an individual's gender role ideology has a strong cultural bearing, the variation in findings cross culturally is expected. It is therefore important also to establish how our "hybridized culture" influences the construction of individuals‘ gender role ideology and the extent to which it affect a myriad of issues in Ghana (e.g. performance of marital roles and marital satisfaction). Marital Satisfaction There are many public health implications that come with a satisfied marital relationship (Halford, Markman, & Stanley, 2008). Some include emotional and psychological well- being, greater happiness and high life satisfaction (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). According to Baumeister (2006), marital satisfaction is ―mental state that reflects the perceived benefits and costs of marriage to a particular person‖ (pp. 541). The more costs a marriage partner experiences, the less the satisfaction. Similarly, the greater the perceived benefits are the more satisfied one is with the marriage and with the marriage partner. Since satisfaction is the mental state of the individual based on the social exchanges that take place between the couple, then the systematic evaluation of the marriage as satisfying or not can be influenced by the ideology the individual holds. One may therefore expect that since there is high consensus and subordination that comes with holding traditional ideology due to its anchor on tradition, it should account for higher marital satisfaction. Thus, a high consensus between couples suggests a high congruence between their gender role ideologies, more similarity between their core values and expectations and higher marital satisfaction. 6 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The big question rather is, do our beliefs really affect our marital satisfaction especially in Africa? Although there is growing research that suggests an association between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction (Kim 1992; Blair, 1993; Amato & Booth, 1995; Kaufman, 2000) very little is known in non-Western context (e.g. Ghana). Earlier studies in the west focused on predictors of marital satisfaction including interpersonal factors, demographic factors, and individual factors (Bagwell, 2006; Herr, 2009). Most of these factors have been well documented in the literature on marital satisfaction. Apart from these, the growing support in the psychological literature for the effect of differences in gender role perceptions on marital satisfaction (Kaufman, 2000; Rogers & Amato, 2000; Perrone, Webb & Blalock, 2005) is dearth especially in the non-western settings were the culture is in variance to the western culture. Religiosity Religiosity and family are found to be closely related on the basis of their emphasis on the same core values of strengthening socialization, fortify and support couples relationship (Call & Heaton, 1997) and providing effective guidance, belief systems and values which improves the life of the individual (Hunler & Genchuz, 2005). Until the early 1970's, the traditional African religion, Islam and the Orthodox churches (Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian) were the most predominant religious sects before the inception of independent Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian churches in Ghana (Adonu, 2005). The religious teachings of the Christian churches especially the independent Charismatic churches were considered antagonistic to the collectivist ideology. Thus, the religious education offered by these churches in cultural terms is an accelerator of westernization since many of the traditional 7 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh African cultural practices were frowned upon and considered as typically unchristian (Assimeng, 1989). This was not the case of Islam. Islam maintained some of the cultural trends such as polygamy, sacrifice, male hegemony and female subordination among others and so was largely accepted by most traditional leaders in Northern and Southern part of Ghana (Nukunya, 2002). However, teachings which undermine the cultural construction of marriage where the man is the head of the family (which is deeply rooted in the Ghanaian psyche) in an attempt to create an equalitarian society were viewed as a precursor for marital discord (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). It can therefore be expected that, marital satisfaction will be higher when marital roles and expectations are grounded on cultural beliefs and are reinforced by the religious activities which resonate with the cultural expectations. Despite the high perceived religiosity of Ghanaians in recent times, a lot of marriages are still in a state of quagmire with high divorce rates. Although there are some studies on the effect of religiosity on marital satisfaction in the Ghanaian context (Dabone, 2015), these studies are dearth. 8 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh PROBLEM STATEMENT Despite the seeming positive effect of marriage on the health and wellbeing of individuals, it has also been found to be clouded with challenges more especially in recent times than in the past. Most of the challenges were attributed to differences in gender role ideology between the sexes which have been well established cross-culturally (Adomako Ampofo, 2001; Akotia & Anum, 2012). However, the extent to which differences in gender role ideology account for variances in marital satisfaction in the Ghanaian context is not fully known and have not being explained. The lack of context-specific evidence however leaves policy makers and intervention designers no choice but rely mostly on the western findings In addition, there are many studies that provided evidence to suggest higher marital satisfaction when there is congruity between gender role ideology and marital roles. In other words, couples or individuals who are married or share marital space are more likely to express marital satisfaction when their gender beliefs are consistent with their marital roles. A number of these studies that investigated division of household labour focused on only instrumental roles. One shortfall of most of these studies is the fact that the definition of marital role (household labour) was not extended to include the relational dimensions of marital role (―emotion work‖) meanwhile literature on marriage suggested that the emotional aspect of marriage is a salient determinant of women‘s marital quality (Mickelson, Claffey & Williams, 2006; Wilkie, Ferree & Ratcliff, 1998). The complex relationship between the two dimensions of gender role ideology and marital role on marital satisfaction was not adequately explained. Generally, researchers have found that the level of an individual‘s religiosity may positively or negatively influence their marital life (Sullivan, 2001; Marks, 2004). In some cultures, 9 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh religiosity was negatively associated with marital satisfaction while it may be beneficial in others (Call & Heaton, 1997). Although Ghana is known to be a Christian state much is not known how religious values contribute to the success or failure of marriages. In recent times, marriages are also increasingly perceived by many women as short of intimacy and equality and therefore unacceptable (Chafetz, 1995). This is because women are increasingly egalitarian and are married to men who have not adopted sufficiently egalitarian beliefs in their marriage (Akotia & Anum, 2012; Amato & Booth, 1995). It is still unclear whether these perceived inequalities and possible behavioral changes that come with modernization of the Ghanaian culture account for the high rates of marital dissolutions. AIMS 1. To investigate the extent to which each dimension of gender role ideology account for variance in marital satisfaction in the Ghanaian culture. 2. To examine the relationships between religiosity and marital satisfaction 3. To examine the mediating effect of the two dimensions of marital role (MR) on the association between Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction. 4. Examine how performance of marital role varies across the two dimensions of gender role ideology. 10 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY This study highlighted how beliefs about the role of men and women in marriage affect their satisfaction in the marriage in line with the role they perform. From a theoretical stand point, the identification of these relationships will inform marriage counselors, relationship experts and leaders of religious institutions. As they often engage people in various sections of the institution of marriage (whether about to marry or already married), knowledge of the current changes in the social structure and the need for couples to be supportive in every facet of their marital will help in effect counseling sections. This will improve reciprocity between couples and their satisfaction in the marriage. In addition, the study adds to psychological literature by offering evidence specific to the Ghanaian context and explanations of how people‘s ideologies in these changing times affect their work-family balance and marital satisfaction. Evidence provided in this study will help inform to-be couples, already married couples in the population and other stakeholders how beliefs when translated into behaviour affect the marriage. This may help reduce the high incidences of marital distress and dissolution recorded in Ghana and the accompanying social problems (Arthur, 2013; Booth & Amato, 2001). Findings from this study will help us understand the importance of emotion work to both men and women within the hybridized Ghanaian culture since some scholars believe that love and affection are not integral part of the African culture. Therefore considering both instrumental and relational marital roles in one model helps understand their relative contribution to martial satisfaction. 11 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Again, this study will provide parents, guardians and youth counselors useful information about the strength and weakness of our culture, how ideologies formed, essence of giving the child appropriate religious teachings, socialization and mentoring which will go a long way to influence their views in relation to the roles of men and women. This can enhance the individual‘s maturity as they gain more understanding to live responsible lives. This could enhance the stability of marriages and reduce social problems in later years. Also, in this study will attempt to respond to the question, do our beliefs really affect our marital satisfaction especially in Africa? Thus the direction of the relationship between gender role ideology, marital role and marital satisfaction in the Ghana will be identified and compared with the extent of variance with other cultures. This will help researchers understand the extent of change the major factors of modernization have imposed on the culture and the way forward. 12 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction among married couples in the Ghana context. In this section, relevant theories were examined and literature related to the study was reviewed. Two main theories were used to explain the relationships in the study. These include the life course theory, which was used to explain gender role ideology (how our beliefs and perceptions are formed throughout our entire life course), the Social exchange theory (Homans, 1961) which was used to explain marital role: the role people perform in the marriage. The rationale for the study, hypotheses, proposed conceptual model and operational definition of terms were also presented in this chapter. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The Life Course Theory The life course theory is a theoretical model that has emerged across several disciplines. One of the key proponents in the early 60‘s was Elder, G. H. According to the theory, key experiences and roles structure individuals‘ lives (Elder, 1998). Thus, people‘s lives are shaped from birth to death through their exposure to many conditions in their environment such as their relationship with the immediate families, social changes, developmental experiences associated with chronological age which unfolds throughout their life course. The fundamental concepts that underpin this theoretical perspective are the concepts of cohorts, transitions, trajectories, life events, and turning points. 13 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh A group of people born at the same historical time, exposed to similar sequence of cultural and social changes are referred to as cohorts (Newman, 2006). Cohorts of a generation have their own unique challenges to deal with and so develop strategies for special circumstances they face (Easterlin, Schaeffer, & Macunovich, 1993). This may have accounted for variation among generational cohorts. Transition refers to changes in roles and statuses an individual experiences which represents a distinct departure from prior roles and statuses. Trajectories are long-term pattern of stability and change, which usually involves multiple transitions and Life events are milestone occurrences that produce a relatively rapid change, serious and long-lasting effects. It includes marriage, pregnancy, divorce, retirement, death etc. Finally, turning points are life events that produce a lasting change in direction in the life course trajectory (Rutter, 1996) visible with time (Wheaton & Gotlib, 1997). According to Rutter (1996), events that either close or open opportunities, those that make a lasting change on the person‘s environment and events that change a person‘s self-concept, beliefs, or expectations are significant turning point event events. Drawing from this perspective, the construction of gender role ideology is a fluid process that changes with changing life experiences. Such experiences include starting school, entering puberty, leaving school, getting a first job, leaving home, marrying and so on. From the transition view point, as the individual matures, he/she experiences changes in roles and statuses that exoduses from prior roles and statuses. All these roles come with different challenges, gendered expectations, and cultural demands for females and males with varying sanctions for those who deviate from these norms (Adomako Ampofo, 2001). As generations make transitions, they encounter unique challenges and develop strategies to deal with the challenges. Consequently, people‘s beliefs about gender roles should facilitate more similarity and congruence in order to achieve satisfaction in the marriage. 14 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Social Exchange Theory Social exchange theory in family studies arose out of the work of Blau (1964) and Homans (1961). The fundamental principle of the theory is that in any social context, humans are rational and they choose behaviours that make them obtain the most out of those situations. Homans (1961) asserted that individuals become satisfied when they perceive benefits which are approximately equal to what they put into relationships (cost). The benefits may be concrete or symbolic exchanges in the relationships which bring pleasure and satisfaction. Costs on the other hand are resources exchanged that are perceived as a loss. e.g. investment costs (energy and personal cognitive or emotional investment), direct costs (time, financial resources, or other structural resources) and opportunity costs (rewards that may be lost as a result of the relationship). The theory asserts that individuals who perceive reciprocity in their social relationships are more likely to feel satisfied with and maintain those relationships. However, the reality is that the dynamics of family life is fraught with a complex interaction of different factors and negotiations. Often times the outcome involves minimal or absence of reciprocity and this promotes a sense of inequality between partners and its accompanying marital challenges. According to Cook (2000) one limitation of the social exchange theory is its inattention to issues of culture and the cross-cultural variations in the norms and rules that regulate social exchange. Again, this theory makes use of principles of behaviorism and principles borrowed from microeconomics (Cook, 2000). It however excludes relevant sociological and anthropological ideas considering them as incongruent and this limits the utilization of the theory in predicting a wide range of behaviours. Despite these criticisms leveled against the theory, the theory remains widely used to describe and give foundation of relationships and the reasons why relationships are started and stopped. 15 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES Gender Role Ideology, Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction Though there have been a number of studies conducted on the relationship between gender role ideology (GRI) and marital satisfaction, there have been inconsistent findings. Some studies from the west assert that traditional gender role ideology predicts higher marital satisfaction (Amato & Booth, 1995; Greenstein, 1996). This was attributed to the fact that traditional beliefs come with well-defined traditional norms hence there is a natural consensus about who does what (Lye & Biblarz 1990). Other recent studies also found that egalitarian gender role ideology also predicts higher marital satisfaction due to a drift towards egalitarianism in an economically challenging environment which calls for role redefinition (Lavee & Katz, 2002; Jain, 2014). Generally however, marital satisfaction is high when there is congruity between spouses‘ gender role ideology (beliefs) or between gender role ideology (beliefs) and marital roles performed (Feng & Baker, 1994; Perrewe & Hochwarter, 2001). Amato and Booth (1995), in a longitudinal survey of married persons examined how changes in gender role ideology over eight year period are related to marital quality. Using structural equation models they found that when wives adopt less traditional gender role attitudes (i.e., wives with more egalitarian gender role) they tend to have lower perceived marital quality while husbands who adopt less traditional attitudes have a higher marital quality. The reason is that wives who are less traditional may demand more decision-making power, ask husbands for more involvement in domestic labour, and engage in more discussions about family affairs. Therefore, in situations of marital conflicts, wives who are less traditional may not easily compromise in order to achieve harmony. However, husbands who are less traditional tend to report higher levels of marital quality because they are likely to involve their wives more in the decision-making process and participate in household chores. Despite 16 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the fulfillment of the egalitarian demands of wives by their husbands, wives were found to be less satisfied. It implies that, though husbands partake in the house work, they do less than wives who still shoulder most responsibilities which is not a reflection of their negotiation. Husbands on the other hand are satisfied because they feel they have made the effort to support their wives though not in terms quantity. Since the satisfaction of wives was found to be low, it is possible they will behave in ways that will not foster peace leading to an overall decline in their satisfaction. In a related study, Greenstein (1996) investigated the quality of marriage among married women and how this is affected by perception of fairness of the division of household labour based on their gender role ideology. Data from the National Survey of Families and household (NSFH; Sweet, Bumpass & Call, 1988) consisting of 4960 married couples was used for the study. It was expected that wives‘ reaction to the unequal division of household labour will be contingent upon their gender role ideology. In addition, non-traditional wives will perceive inequalities in the division of household labour than traditional wives. Also, gender ideology was expected to moderate the effects of wives' perception of injustice in the division of household labour on the perceived quality of their marriages. Findings revealed that gender role was a significant factor in the perception of fairness in the division of household labour such that egalitarian wives perceived the division of household labour as unfair hence a decline in marital satisfaction. For women holding traditional gender attitudes, although their household labour could be undoubtedly stressful, such allocations of responsibility for household are consistent with their expectations of a married woman holding a traditional gender ideology so they did not experience any injustice. As a result, traditional women were noted to have a more stable marriage than the non-traditional women. 17 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Guilbert and Pasley (2000) examined the relationship between gender role beliefs, negativity, distancing and marital instability. A longitudinal survey data from 469 white females and 294 white males was used. Participants used in this study were restricted to White respondents, in a first marriage, who completed all survey questions for each of the three assessment periods and remained married throughout the study. Structural equation modeling was used and it was found that, females with modern gender role belief reported a higher level of marital instability than the males. According to the researchers, females experience increased marital instability through increased negativity and distancing, whereas males experience increased marital instability through increased distancing only. This implies that females who are unable to resolve marital role issues brought about by their more modern gender role beliefs continue to engage their husbands to reach resolution. When they fail to do so, they ultimately perceive and experience increasing negativity. Over time, the increased negativity creates a communication gap (interaction with their husbands) which leads to males‘ perceptions of marital instability as a result of sensitivity to distancing. This classic study is race-biased in nature and therefore the elimination of blacks from the sample limited the extent of generalization of findings to the population in question. In a longitudinal view, Faulkner, Davey and Davey (2005) investigated the gender-related predictors of marital satisfaction and marital conflict in stable marriages. Longitudinal secondary dyadic data from first time marriages of the National Survey of Families and Households (Sweet, Bumpass, & Call, 1988) was the primary data source used. The sub- sample selected and analyzed in their study was based on the criteria that husbands and wives should be in their first marriage and the same couple at wave 1 should be present at wave 2. In all, 1561 couples met this criterion with a mean age of 46 years for husbands and 42 years for wives. Results offer some support for gender-based influences on husbands‘ and wives‘ 18 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh marital satisfaction and conflict over time. It was found that employed wives usually perceive inequality due to role overload based on the notion of working a ―second shift‖ in the home. So they are likely to initiate conflict in the relationship as a way expressing their grievances which in turn increases levels of marital conflict and decreases marital satisfaction for husbands. This supports their hypothesis that marital and interpersonal functioning of the wife may be a greater predictor for husbands‘ marital satisfaction and wife's marital conflict. It also implies that modern women would have high conflict proneness which leads to lower marital stability. Again, Wilcox and Nock (2006) in their pursuit to investigate equity, equality, commitment and women‘s marital quality also found that wives‘ gender egalitarianism and work outside of the home leads to less positive emotion work on the part of husbands leading to lower levels of women‘s happiness. The data was drawn from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Household (1992-1994). A subsample of 5,010 couples who were 23 years and above were drawn from NSFH2. The statistics and analyses used for this study are based on weighted data, adjusted for oversamples of African-Americans and Hispanics. Series of multiple regressions were performed on the data and the results obtained provided support for the equity, gender and institutional models of marriage. They explained that women who are not happy with the division of household labour may have higher expectations of marital equality and male emotion work that lead them to enter into conflict with their husbands or disconnect themselves emotionally from their marriages. This caused husbands to decrease the time they spend with their wives leading to their reduced marital happiness. On the other hand, women who are in marriages that are characterized by more traditional gender beliefs and practices are found happier with the emotion work they receive and do receive more of such emotion work from their husbands. 19 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh However, the findings of Lavee and Katz (2002) in their Israeli study were contrary to above studies. In their study they examined the moderating role of gender role ideology in the relationship among division of labour, perceived fairness and marital quality among three ethnic groups in Israel. Using a probabilistic sampling technique, a sample of 1124 was obtained comprising of 559 men and 565 women. The Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling and the findings corresponded with the compassionate theory of marriage which establishes the fact that egalitarianism in belief and practice leads to higher marital quality for wives and higher positive emotion for men. They found that sense of fairness mediates the relationship between division of labour and marital quality and gender ideology moderated these relations for women but not for men. Thus, women with modern gender role ideology had a higher marital satisfaction compared to men. According to the researchers, women were found to perceive equity as a result of their husband‘s participation in the division of labour. For the men, their perception of fairness is not necessarily related to actual household income but the amount of emotional support they receive from their wives as their wives serve as their emotional backup for them. Marital satisfaction in this study was therefore found to be high due to reciprocity in the marriage. Couple analysis could have being performed to see how one partner‘s gender role ideology and marital satisfaction can be influenced by the others. Again, Xu and Lai (2004), found similar findings as Lavee and Katz. They found that egalitarian gender role ideology led to a higher marital harmony and a lower marital discord for both men and women. In their study, they investigated the relationship among gender role ideology, marital roles and marital quality among Taiwanese married men and women. The 1996 Taiwan Social Change Survey, Year two cycle three was the primary data source for this study. Using the multistage and stratified random-sampling technique, 446 Taiwanese 20 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh women and 481 Taiwanese men who were married but not necessarily couples and are resided with their respective spouses were selected. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling and a statistically insignificant direct relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction was found. The relationship was however mediated through marital role behaviour accounting for the above finding. The implication of Xu and Lai‘s study is that egalitarian gender role ideology for instance may not lead to higher or lower marital quality unless it is translated successfully into egalitarian marital role performance. When the beliefs are successfully translated into housework, there is congruity and commitment to the roles leading to harmony. The above reviews provided evidence of an association between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. However, due to contextual differences in the construction gender role ideology and how it is translated into housework, variations in the levels of couples‘ satisfaction across culture were observed. This has led to inconsistencies in findings across culture. The extent to which traditional or egalitarian gender role ideology is converted to traditional/egalitarian marital role for couples to assert marital satisfaction is not fully known especially in the non-western context where the association was not extensively studied. There are myriad of gender related issues in Africa which can affect satisfaction. Miller and Kannae (2002) for instance investigated predictors of marital quality in Ghana. Using a survey method, 431 married monogamous males between the ages of 21 and 60, educated were sampled from the population. The participants of the study were made to respond to a set of questionnaires based on the constructs under study (marital quality, gender role attitude, division of household labour and so on). The researchers used structural equation modeling for the latent variable path analysis (latent variable partial least square 21 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh estimation) procedure also known as soft modeling in order to minimize error variance and increasing the variability and stability of their measurement. They found that husbands with fewer traditional beliefs about male dominance and those who engaged in open communication with their spouses reported more quality marriages. The result was consistent with findings from previous studies from the west that egalitarianism promotes husbands marital satisfaction but not among wives. The researchers however sampled only males which could limit the generalizability of findings. Again, Akotia and Anum (2012) explored the moderation effect of education and age on the relationship between gender differences and gender role perception among heterogeneous urban population in Ghana. Four hundred and seventy-six (476) respondents made up of high and low education groups were selected for this study. The research assistants adopted convenient sampling technique sampled undergraduate student, volunteers selected from the University of Ghana and other respondents selected from three communities within a 5 km radius from the university in order to obtain the two groups of respondents (one with university education and another with no tertiary education). About 60% of the respondents were females and 40 % males. The researchers examined the extent to which men and women will adopt traditional/egalitarian gender role attitudes and the outcome if age and education moderate the relationship. They found differences on traditional gender role perceptions based on education. Also, while there was no gender difference on the traditional component, education seemed to minimize females' perceptions of traditional roles but not males. The researchers observed that both females and young adults endorsed more modern perceptions of gender roles. The results seemed to support the notion that males are less likely to change from socialization practices that encourage male hegemony. One limitation of this study is the disproportionate number of males and females sampled for the study. The discussion 22 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh would have being more whole if the study was extended to examine how this will affect satisfaction generally in respondents' relationships. Mbunga (2010) in an exploratory study investigated marital satisfaction of couples at the Africa Inland Church in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to inform premarital counseling practices in Kenya. The researcher used a mixed method design on a premise of a better understanding of the research problem. For the survey aspect of the research, the Marital Satisfaction Inventory revised was used to assess the marital satisfaction of couples. Forty participants were selected using the purposive sampling technique based on the criteria of being married between one and fifteen years, willing and available to take part in the Survey and appropriately respond to the items. For the qualitative aspect of the study, a set of open ended questions were designed to serve as a guide for the interview. One of the most striking discoveries made in this research was that most of the participants experienced a substantial degree of dissatisfaction in their marriages. The results of the survey on the global distress scale shows that seventy one participants out of the eighty that took the survey, expressed a global dissatisfaction with their marriages. This includes those who registered moderate dissatisfaction, and the few who registered high dissatisfaction. Only nine people indicated global satisfaction with their marriages. This was largely attributed to the culture of the people. Cultural norms among the African people promote male dominance and treat women as subordinate to men. This was evident in most of the factors measured as predictors of marital satisfaction. The number of males in all the condition outnumbers the females. For instance, on affective communication, the findings indicate that the overall rating across the couples was satisfaction with more males satisfied than females. The overall rating of the couples‘ time together in marriage was dissatisfaction. The overall rating of the couples on aggression in their marriages was satisfaction with higher number of males since they initiate 23 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the aggressive acts. On disagreements over finances by the couples, the overall finding was dissatisfaction with the way finances were handled in their marriages. Since the males are the major breadwinners, they were dissatisfied compared to females. On sexual intimacy in marriage, the couples had equal numbers of those satisfied with their marital sexual intimacy and those who were not. It was therefore concluded that Commitment to one‘s spouse and marriage was seen as a very important component to any successful marriage and was recommended to take high priority in premarital counseling sessions. One limitation of the study is that sample size and the urban sample used will limit the degree of generalizability of findings. In South Africa, Ngubane (2010) invested how gender role in Africa has its implication on the spread of HIV/AIDS. The researchers asserted that the spread of HIV and AIDS cannot be controlled until the cultural mores of Africa which permit men to have more sexual partners, negatively affecting women is given a second look. Data for this study was collected using both qualitative and convenient sampling techniques. The survey comprise of 127 respondents who were given a set of questions to respond to. The qualitative data was also collected using face-to-face in-depth interviews conducted with the sample of 16 pastors. The in-depth interview made use of a semi-structured interview schedule for obtaining information for study. Data obtained during the in-depth interviews were transcribed. The transcriptions were reviewed a number of times and content analyzed using cross-sectional or categorical indexing in order to identify the various categories and themes that emerged. The themes were sorted out for further analysis. The results indicated that numerous social, political, cultural and economic factors are responsible for the HIV pandemic in South Africa. The main ones are low status of women and male dominance in sexual and economic relations, sexual abuse (of particularly young girls), historic and current separation of families 24 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh resulting from the migrant labour system which resulted in multiple sexual partners, high use of sex workers due to single-sex quarters at the workplace, cultural resistance to the use of condoms and the high levels of poverty and other inequalities among others. This factors cause men to still hold the view that they are beneficiaries of African culture, which might be misinterpreted as male privilege and discrimination against women. They concluded that men will not give up the power and control they have over women unless they are educated to be engaged in finding the solution. There are some limitations associated with the study. The non-probability sample used in this study is relatively small. As it is a non-probability sample the findings cannot be generalized although they may still be useful to other research studies within the same field. In addition, making use of the qualitative data analysis strategy to interpret the data means that data may be open to further interpretation which may be subject to the researcher‘s biases. Gelb (2014) examined role centrality and gender role ideology as antecedents of work family conflict amongst white-collar working fathers in South Africa. Non-probability sampling approach was used to draw the sample due to complications in implementing the latter approach. The sample was obtained through convenience sampling and a snowballing approach, whereby participants were asked to forward the link of the questionnaire to other people they know. The sampling frame comprised of fathers involved in a full time work role with at least one child living at home. Out of the 409 respondents, a correct data was collected from 371. Exploratory factor analysis supported the bidirectional nature of work- family conflict. Data was further analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation and hierarchical multiple regression. Interestingly, work and family role centrality did not explain a significant variance in work-family conflict, however hierarchical multiple regression analysis confirmed that when family centrality interacted with gender role 25 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ideology a significant variance of both family-to-work conflict and work-to-family conflict was explained. Involvement in one‘s family role was viewed as resource draining and contributed to Work-Family-Conflict experiences. In addition to the influence of domestic support, it is likely that increased reported levels of Work-Family-Conflict opposed to Family-Work-Conflict could be explained by the economic conditions in South Africa. 26 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh MARITAL ROLE AND MARITAL SATISFACTION One aspect of a couple‘s life that has been shown to be linked to marital satisfaction is the division of household labour. The household according to Davis (2007) is a ―gender factory‖ where gendered roles are negotiated and shared but has now become a domestic battleground (Xu & Lai, 2004). This is because the beliefs and expectations of married people are often not translated into real work leading to incongruence and variances in marital satisfaction. In most studies however, only the instrumental aspect of marital role comprising of indoor, outdoor childcare roles was often considered as the objective way of measuring household labour. The relational roles in marriage were given little attention and less so their combined effect on marital satisfaction. Instrumental Marital Roles and Marital Satisfaction Cubbins and Vannoy (2004) in their study in Metropolitan Moscow investigated division of household labour as a source of contention for married and cohabiting couples. The researchers investigated how spouses‘ economic resources, gender beliefs and time constrain influence marital contentions directly or indirectly through wife‘s satisfaction of division of labour. Data for the study was collected through a multistage cluster probability sample in the Moscow metropolitan area in 1996. The sample consisted of 494 men and 596 women between the ages of 18 and 60. Data was analyzed using a series of multivariate analyses and it was found that time constraint in the division of labour has a direct effect on marital conflict for wives such that the greater wife‘s relative contribution to housework, the less satisfaction the wife has with the division of labour and the higher the conflict. This implies that the way work is divided in the home (whether based on time constraint, gender beliefs or economic resources) is important for the wife‘s evaluation of marital relationship. In addition, husbands were found to be more satisfied with the division of housework when wives 27 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh contribute more to the housework relative to them as they also contribute more to the economic resources of the home than wives. The researchers therefore concluded that household labour is most important in predicting marital contention for wives, but it is only somewhat important for husbands. However, the questions that measured the household activities couples performed in the marriage were basically instrumental, with the scale being restricted to non–child care tasks. One major limitation in this study is the absence of measures of childcare tasks and emotion work which is a crucial element of housework particularly among young couple who have started raising children. Bartley, Blanton and Gilliard (2005) investigated the division of household labour among husbands and wives in dual-earner marriages in the metropolitan area in the Southern United States. The researchers wanted to find out how decision making, gender role attitudes, division of household labour and the perception of equity affects satisfaction in the marriage. Participants include heterosexual couples, married, residing together and have at least one child under the age of 18. In all, 233 participants comprising of 119 husbands and 114 wives were selected and 78 respondents who were once married couples were obtained. A multivariate analysis of variance, Pearson moment correlation and a step-wise regression analyses were performed and results indicated that the amount of time spent in female dominated household tasks led to a decline in the perception of equity in the marriage. Interestingly, both husbands and wives experienced inequity with respect to the time spent in the female dominated household tasks. Wives reported more traditional gender roles attitudes, performed about two-thirds of the female dominated household labour, less participated in decision making. This negatively impacted their perception of equity in the marriage and their decline in marital satisfaction. The time often spent on female dominated 28 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh work is often considered as no work (no economic value) so receive minimal support leading to decline in marital satisfaction for wives than husbands. Meier, McNaughton and Lynch (2006) studied the management of household and childcare tasks and the relationship satisfaction in dual-earner families. In this study the mental work associated with the management of the household and childcare and how it affects marital satisfaction was investigated since most studies focused on how the roles are shared. Using convenient sampling technique, forty-five parents with young children of age 6 or younger were recruited from the participant pool and were made to complete the packet of questionnaires for the study. Data was analyzed using series of regression analyses and results showed that marital satisfaction for fathers and mothers differed significantly in terms of the division of labour and management of labour. Fathers reported higher marital satisfaction when they were more engaged in actual childcare tasks and less engaged in managements of childcare tasks. This is in consonance with previous studies which assert that men are happier in their marriage when they are involved more in the care of their children. The satisfaction of wives on the other hand was neither dependent on the actual household tasks and childcare tasks nor managements of childcare tasks but rather worrying about how management of tasks could be achieved. The more wives worried, the more they were able to have their husbands to assist and the higher the satisfaction. In spite of this, men were more satisfied than women because the mental work associated with the management of the household and childcare gave wives more burden than men. Mickelson, Claffey and Williams (2006) investigated the moderating roles of gender and gender role attitude on the link between spousal support and marital quality among married and cohabiting men and women in America. A sample of 3500 comprising of 1787 women 29 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (51.06%) and 1713 men (48.94%) extracted from a nationwide household survey data of the U.S. population aged 15–54 years. Multiple linear regression analysis and stratified multiple linear regression analyses were used to examine the complex relations between gender, gender role attitudes, spousal support and marital quality. The researchers found that both emotional and instrumental spousal support were significant predictors of marital quality for egalitarian women, whereas only emotional spousal support was a significant predictor of marital quality for egalitarian men. This suggests that demands of modern women in perceiving fairness and marital satisfaction are higher compared to modern men. Emotional Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction Few studies considered the emotional aspect of marriage in their study as important for achieving satisfaction. For instance, Stevens, Kiger and Riley (2001), investigated how the three dimensions of domestic labour— household-task, emotion-work, and status- enhancement work were associated with marital satisfaction. For men, satisfaction with the emotion-work arrangement in the marriage yielded the greatest magnitude of influence on marital satisfaction followed by household-task-arrangement measure while the satisfaction with status-enhancement-activities arrangement does not exercise a statistically significant effect on marital satisfaction. The reason is that couples involve themselves somewhat more equally in emotion work than in household tasks, causing men to be responsible for emotional labour but not necessarily household labour. On the other hand, women‘s marital satisfaction was found to be influenced more by household-labour arrangements with a magnitude greater than satisfaction with emotion work due to social expectations. On the whole, despite the fact that this sample was dual-earners, women did more of the housework tasks while the men do more of the emotion-work. One major limitation of couple studies is 30 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the tendency that questions may be discussed and responses may be biased which could affect the true reflections of the issues and for that matter the reliability of findings. There is therefore paucity of research in the area of relational marital role especially its mediation effect. Many a time, only one dimension of the marital role was often considered – instrumental roles. There is therefore a need for more cross cultural studies where research can examine how either or both dimensions of marital role account for variances in marital satisfaction. According to Mickelson et al (2006), the relational aspect of household labour is very salient in achieving wives‘ marital satisfaction. Despite the weight of evidence for the importance of marital role in determining marital satisfaction, there is still a paucity of study in this area. The few studies which looked at this variable often do not consider its mediating role in the existing relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction Religious values are known to play significant roles in the lives of many people worldwide due to their many functions including social integrative functions, and coping functions. Several studies have found positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction (Fincham & Beach, 2010; Mahoney, 2010). Fard, Shahabi and Zardkhaneh (2013), investigated the relationship between religious attitude and marital satisfaction. One hundred and fifty six married students from the University of Tehran participated in the study. The researchers found a significant positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction. The dimension of religiosity which predicted marital satisfaction most was religious emotions, followed by religious cognition. Religious duty was found to be the least predictor of marital satisfaction among the sample. These 31 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh results suggest that couples with similar religious emotions and religious beliefs (cognitions) are more likely to perceive marital satisfaction. This could be due to the fact that religiosity provides an effective framework for conflict resolution in the marriage. Stafford, David and McPherson (2014) also studied the relationship between sanctity (thus viewing marriage as a manifestation of God) and marital quality among 342 heterosexual couples. Using partner independence model and multilevel path modeling results show that sanctity was positively related to marital satisfaction but negatively related to marital dissatisfaction. The relationship between sanctity and marital quality was mediated by sacrifice. This means that sanctity of marriage is likely to motivate sacrifice and contribute positively towards preserving marriage. Majority of the participants in this study were whites (82.7%), which will make the results inapplicable to other racial populations such as Africans. In contrast, Sullivan (2001) in her cross sectional survey investigated the association between religiosity and marital outcome. One hundred seventy-two newly married couples. Spouses independently completed a set of questionnaires including a consent form, demographic forms. They were also asked to engage in two 10-minutes problem-solving discussions which were videotaped for later coding. Participants were then debriefed and paid $75. A series of Hierarchical regression analyses were used to evaluate the direct and indirect models. Findings indicated that religiosity did not account for a significant variation in marital satisfaction thus neither husbands' nor wives' religiosity significantly predicted their own or their spouses' marital satisfaction. However, there was some evidence consistent with the indirect, model of religiosity that, husbands and wives who were more religious had less tolerance for the idea of divorce and a greater level of commitment. 32 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Again, in the study of Booth, Johnson, Branahan and Sica, (1995), a negative relationship between spirituality and marital quality was found. The researchers wanted to find out if changes in religiosity alter marital quality or vice versa, and if either change occurs, what aspects of marital quality and religiosity are involved They used a 12 years longitudinal data especially that of 1988 and 1992 waves for analysis because these are the only two waves that contain detailed measures of religiosity. Using structural equation modeling analytic technique the latent variables religion and marital quality at each wave were explored. The researchers found a little support for the assertion that an increase in religious activity leads to improved marital relations. Thus with an increase in religiosity the probability of individuals thinking about divorce slightly decreases while an increase in marital happiness slightly increases two of the five dimensions of religiosity considered (church service attendance and religion's influence on daily life). In Ghana, Dabone (2015) investigated the effect of religiosity on marital satisfaction among married people in the Sunyani municipality. A purposive sampling technique was used to sample 320 participants for the study. The participants were given the set of questionnaires to respond to. The data was subjected a series of statistics tests such as independent t test. The researchers found that both Christian and Muslims were low in marital satisfaction and there was no significant difference between them. One major limitation of this study is the the judgmental sampling technique deployed by the researchers which could influenced his choice of participants used for the data. Therefore, the link between religion and marital quality is both reciprocal and weak. Although religiosity was generally found to account for increase in marital satisfaction, there 33 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh are still contradictions in the literature. There is therefore the need for more context-specific investigations to clarify these differences. STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESES  Traditional gender role ideology will explain more variance in marital satisfaction than modern/egalitarian gender role ideology when age, sex marital status, and education are controlled.  There will be a significant positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction.  (a). Instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. (b) Relational marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction (c) Instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. (d) Relational marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. 34 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK IMR TGRI MS RMR Fig. 1: Model of the Relationship between Traditional Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction IMR MS MGRI RMR Fig. 2: Model of the Relationship between Modern Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction 2.8 Key variables in the study Independent Variable: Gender role ideology and Religiosity Dependent variable: Marital satisfaction Mediator: Marital role 35 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS  Marital satisfaction – It is the degree of happiness, comfort and reward people experience in marriage.  Marital roles - These are sets physical (indoor, outdoor, childcare) and emotional works performed by husbands, wives, both or significant others in the marriage.  Gender role ideology – These are traditional or modern beliefs that people hold about the sphere of work of men and women.  Instrumental roles - These are the physical roles couples perform, example cooking, attend P.T.A meetings and child disciplinarian activities.  Relational roles - These are set of emotional duties couples perform such as emotional support, communication, companionship and conflict resolution among others.  Religiosity –The degree to which an individual is preoccupied, guided, convicted and emotional involved to their religious principles e.g. praying for guidance, how prayer lifts ones spirit, absolute believe in God and so on.  Married couple –husband and wife living together by virtue of at least customary marriage. 36 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY Introduction This chapter discusses the methods that were used to gather data in investigating the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction among married couples in the Ghanaian context. Specifically, it describes the population of the study, the sample size and sampling techniques employed, as well as some ethical considerations that were adhered to in order to achieve the aim of the study. Research Setting The study was conducted in the Accra Metropolis. This location was considered appropriate because the Accra Metropolis is a densely populated cosmopolitan city characterized by a cross section of population which can be assumed representative of the general population. Forty-four percent (44%) of residents in the Metropolis are migrants and this reflects its cosmopolitan nature and therefore made it conducive for this study. Population Population according to Melville and Goddard (1996) is any group which is the subject of research interest. Since this study sought to establish the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction among married couples in Ghana, the target population for this current study was adults in the Accra Metropolis from which the sample frame of married men and women was obtained. 37 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Sampling Technique The power of generalization of a quantitative survey depends on the extent to which the sample selected is representative of the target population (Frank & Min, 2007). In order to obtain a representative sample for adequate generalization, sampling technique and the size of the respondents must be taken into consideration. For a survey of this nature that targets a large population, a non-probability sampling technique was employed though considered of a weaker statistical power. Here participants were not selected to be included in the sample based on random selection due to the nature of the population and sensitivity of the subject matter under discussion. It is difficult for people in Accra where the research was conducted to disclose their personal information to strangers. In this study, since the marriage life of the participant is of interest to the researcher it becomes difficult to obtain respondents. In most cases, responses to questionnaire items do not reflect the reality on the ground (socially desirable responses). This makes the non-probability sampling technique feasible for this study though it limits the degree of generalization of the research finding to the population. In spite of the short fall of non-probability sampling technique, it is relatively, cheaper, quicker and easier to reach out to as many people as possible who fall in the sample framework due to the sample size and time constrains. For the purpose of this study, convenient sampling a type of non-probability sampling technique was therefore used. Participants were selected based on their availability and willingness to participate voluntarily in the study. Respondents included in this study were married men and women who are Ghanaians with ages between 25-55 years, living together for at least one year. Conscious efforts were made to ensure that the sample drawn had characteristics that made them quite representative of the entire populations. 38 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Sample A sample is a subset of individuals/cases selected from a larger population (Bordens & Abbott, 2005). A total of 253 married individuals constituted the sample for the study. This comprises of 120 married women and 133 married men. For a study involving regression analysis, Green (1991) noted that the rule on the minimum acceptable sample size suggests that when testing for the overall fit of the regression model (R2) the sample size is given by 50 + 8k where k is the number of predictors and secondly when testing for the individual predictors within the model (b-values) is given by 104 + k. But if the interest is in the overall fit and the individual predictors then the one with the largest sample is used. The interest of this study is in both the overall fit and the individual predictors within the model therefore the minimum sample size should be 104 + 3 = 107. This however depends on the effect size of interest (Cohen, 1998, Miles & Shievelin, 2001). Opoku (2002) also noted that increasing the sample size increases the reliability of the research findings. For this reason a sample of 300 was considered appropriate for this study so as to minimize the effect of uncompleted questionnaires and increasing the power of generalization to the population. Three hundred questionnaires were distributed and out of this 253 were retrieved representing 84.3%. 20 questionnaires were not fully completed, 17 could not be retrieved and 10 questionnaires were inappropriately responded to. In all, 47 questionnaires were not assessed for analysis. Measures/Instruments Self-report questionnaires were used to gather data for the study. The questionnaire was organized into five (5) sections. Section A: Gender role ideology scale, Section B: Couple Satisfaction Index (CSI), Section C: Dimensions of Religiosity Scale (DRS), Section D: Family Role Performance Scale and Section E: Demographic Data. 39 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Section A: Gender role ideology scale Gender role ideology was measured with a nine item version of the gender role ideology scale by (Davis & Greenstein, 2009). The original scale is a 32 battery of questions measuring gender role ideology. Most of the items correspond with measures used by Davis and Wallis (2010), Vespa (2009) and Mickelson (2005) with Cronbach alpha values of 0.81, 0.80 and 0.73 respectively. The scale is made of two facets/ dimensions: traditional (5 items: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7) and modern (4 items: 1, 3, 8, 9). Items on the scale are scored on a 5 point likert scale: [strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5)]. Some of the items include (It is much better for everyone concerned if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family, Men should share the work around the house with women, such as doing dishes, cleaning, A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work,). In this current study, a Cronbach alpha of 0.77 was obtained for the traditional dimension while 0.74 was obtained for the modern dimension. High scores on (items 1, 3, 8, 9) indicate a more inclination towards modern ideology while high scores on item (2, 4, 5, 6, and 7) indicate a more inclination towards traditional ideology. Section B: Couple Satisfaction Index (CSI) The construct marital satisfaction was measured using the Couple Satisfaction Index (CSI) developed by Funk and Rogge (2007). Although there are many scales measuring relationship satisfaction, (e.g. Marital Adjustment Test, Dyadic Adjustment Scale) CSI scale was shown to have higher precision of measurement, high convergent validity with other measures of satisfaction, excellent construct validity and correspondingly greater power for detecting differences in levels of satisfaction hence its adoption. The original Couples Satisfaction Index is a 32 item scale. For the purposes of this study, the 4 item version of the 40 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh scale which is role oriented was used. Sample items on the scale include: [(1) How rewarding is your relationship with your partner? (2). In general, how satisfied are you with your relationship? (Please indicate the degree of happiness, all things considered, of your relationship]. Items 1-3 were measured on a 6-point likert scale ranging from not at all (0) to completely (5) while item 4 which measures the degree of happiness with one‘s marriage was also measured on a 7 point likert scale ranging from extremely unhappy (0) to perfect (6). In all the versions, scoring was kept continuous where lower scores indicate a lower level of satisfaction in the marriage while higher scores indicate higher happiness and marital satisfaction. A Cronbach alpha of 0.94 was obtained by the developer. In this study however, a Cronbach alpha of 0.88 was obtained for the four items. Section C: Dimensions of Religiosity Scale (DRS) Religiosity was measured using the dimensions of religiosity scale developed by Joseph & DiDuca (2007). The scale is a 20 item self-report measure of an individual‘s religious thinking and behaviour. The DR scale was categorized in to 4 subscales: religious preoccupation, guidance, conviction and emotional involvement with their respective Cronbach alphas of 0.94, 0.94, 0.90, and 0.95 obtained by the author measured on a 5point likert scale: [strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5)]. In relation to the various subscales, Preoccupation comprise of items such as (e.g. everything that happens to me reminds me of God). With Guidance items include (e.g., I pray for guidance in everyday matters, I cannot make important decision without God). Conviction (e.g., I am certain that God is aware of everything I do). Emotional involvement (e.g. I feel happy when I think of God). In all, 12 items on the scale emerged with high factor loadings with all the factors loaded onto one component and this was used to measure the religiosity of participants in this study with a Cronbach alpha of 0.72. 41 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Section D: Family Role Performance Scale The construct marital role was measured with the Family Role Performance Scale (Chen, Shaffer, Westman, Chen, Lazarova, & Reiche, 2014). The scale has two dimensions - Instrumental roles and relational role. The modified version of the Family Role Performance Scale was used to measure both dimension of the marital role. The items used for the instrumental roles include housework, laundry, meals preparation, paying bills, yard work, household repairs and maintenance and so on. In all, 19 items were used to measure marital role. 14 items were used for the instrumental dimension while the relational dimension was measured with 5 items. The instrumental dimension had three subcategories (Indoor, outdoor and childcare). A Cronbach alpha of 0.83 was obtained for the instrumental dimension and 0.68 for the relational. Items of both dimensions were scored on a 5 point Likert-type scale ranging from "Never (1)" to "Very frequently (5)‖. A higher score on the dimensions indicate more involvement in the instrumental role and relational role. Section E: Demographic Data Demographic information gathered for the study included sex, number of children, age, ethnicity, spouse‘s age, gender, education level, and occupational status, duration of relationship, ethnicity, and income. Research Design The focus of this study is not to establish a cause and effect relationship by manipulating independent variables as in experimental designs but to describe and explain the relationship between variables of interest (gender role ideology and marital satisfaction). Therefore a cross-sectional survey, a non-experimental method was adopted in this study. 42 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Pilot Study A pilot study was conducted with a sample of 30 married individuals (17 females and 13 males) to test for the reliabilities and the validity of the adapted instruments. The instruments used in this study were foreign so their applicability in the Ghanaian context and the clarity of the questions were monitored. The pilot sample comprised of some teachers of the University of Ghana primary school and a community at a 5Km radius from the University. Aside the teachers in the University of Ghana primary school, other participants who took part in the pilot were contacted in their homes and their place of work after their consents were sorted. Some participants responded to the questionnaire immediately while others due to their work schedules were given one week to complete. The various scales were subjected to exploratory factor analysis to test the internal reliability of items and validity of the items in the Ghanaian context since some of the items were modified and others deleted. Nine out of the ten item gender role ideology scale showed strong factor loading hence the 9 items were maintained. The last item was however deleted. Similarly, the original 17 item family role performance scale was used. The items on the scale also showed a simple structure with two components showing strong factor loadings. Some items with weak factor loading were deleted, replaced or modified. For instance items such as making complaints to land lords, attend community welfare meetings, attend parent/teacher (P.T.A) meetings taking the child to the doctor /herbalist etc. were added to the scale while items such as advice to family members, participate in family activities were deleted. Items such as providing emotional support to family members, organize family activities were also modified. In all, a 19 items scale was obtained to measure this construct. For the religiosity scale, given these overall indicators, factor analysis was deemed to be suitable with all the 20 items. The 20 items were subjected to exploratory factor analysis after 43 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh some items were modified. Some items such as ―when I think about Jesus am happy” and a few others were modified because not all the participants in the study are Christians. Analysis revealed the presence of one component with 12 items out of the 20 items showing strong factors loadings. The following Cronbach alpha was recorded for each piloted scale: Gender Role Ideology scale GRI α = 0.80, Couple Satisfaction Index CSI, α= 0.96. The overall reliability obtained for the Dimensions of Religiosity is 0.94. The cronbach alpha for the instrumental dimension of the Family Role Performance Scale was 0.77 while that for the relational dimension of the scale had a reliability of 0.72. Procedure for Main Study Institutional approval for this research was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB), Ethics Committee for Humanities, University of Ghana. A letter of introduction was then obtained from the department of Psychology of the University of Ghana for the permission to conduct the research. The set of questionnaires measuring gender role ideology (GRI), marital satisfaction (MS), Religiosity and Marital roles (MR) were distributed to married men and women with the help of two research assistants. Participants were contacted in their homes and work places. Participants were made to read and understand the consent form and the background information of the research. Those who were willing and gave their consent to participate in the research were given the set of questionnaire to respond to. Participants were guided where necessary thus how they should respond to the items based on their preferences to each questionnaire item. Names of participants were not taken to ensure anonymity but other demographic information including sex, age, income, educational level, ethnicity etc. were taken. Participants who requested to keep the questionnaire were allowed to do so for one week. The data collection period lasted for one month. 44 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Scoring The scales that measured gender role ideology and religiosity were scored on a 5 point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). High scores on the scale reflected more of the attribute. Similarly, the scale that measured marital role was also score on a 5 point likert scale ranging from Never (1) to frequently (5). Higher score on the dimensions indicate more involvement in the instrumental role and relational role. The scale that measure marital satisfaction however has a unique score format. Items 1-3 on the scale were measured on a 6-point likert scale ranging from not at all (0) to completely (5) while item 4 which measures the degree of happiness with one‘s marriage was also measured on a 7 point likert scale ranging from extremely unhappy (0) to perfect (6). Scoring was kept continuous where lower scores indicate a lower level of satisfaction in the marriage while higher scores indicate higher happiness and marital satisfaction. Ethical Considerations Ethical standards that govern social science research (APA, 2000) were strictly adhered to before, during and after the collection of data. According to the APA‘s Ethics Code, when a researcher wants to obtain informed consent from a participant, the person should be informed about the following: the purpose of the study, expected duration and procedure., the right to decline participation from the research, limits of confidentiality, potential risks, discomforts and adverse effects, incentives for participation and whom to contact for questions about the research. Based on above requirements, the researcher took certain steps to ensure that ethical issues outlined were observed in the present study. It was therefore explained to participants that participation in this research was voluntary and participants also had the right to withdraw from the research without any penalties. In addition, consent forms which also contain relevant information about the study (purpose, duration and others) were 45 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh attached to the questionnaires which were distributed to the participants. Participants who agreed to take part in this research were therefore made to read and understand the consent form before filling the questionnaires. Furthermore, participants were ensured of confidentiality of the information provided since this is purely an academic research. The names of participants, including house address or whatever means of identification were not documented in order to render all the data anonymous. There was no reward in terms of cash or other material benefits given and respondents were assured of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any penalty or financial commitments. However, there were some anticipated minimal risks involved in this research such as fatigue and exhaustion from filling the questionnaires which may take about 30 minutes to complete. Respondents who had or still going through marital difficulties could experience some brief emotional ordeals but such responses were expected to be minimal and would not significantly interfere with answering of the questionnaires and other aftermath consequences. 46 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS Introduction The study examined the extent to which various dimensions of Gender Role Ideology; traditional, modern predicts marital satisfaction. Two main types of analyses were carried out. The first involved the preliminary analyses and the second consisted of testing the hypotheses of the study using appropriate statistical techniques. Preliminary Analysis These included frequencies of demographic characteristics for the entire sample and the various study groups, analysis of the normal distribution of the variables, means, standard deviation, correlation among the key study variables and internal consistency reliability. The present study tested for both normality and homogeneity. Test for normality using skewness and kurtosis was within the acceptable range of ±2 (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007) for all the scales. All the scales used in this analysis also yielded acceptable results of Cronbach‘s alpha coefficients and all the variables are normally distributed (see Table 2). 47 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 1 Summary of Demographic Characteristics of Sample Demographic Frequency Percentage (%) Variable Sex Male 133 52.6 Female 1 2 0 47.4 Age 20-30 139 54.9 31- 40 67 26.5 41-50 8 3.2 50+ 39 15.4 Parity 1 9 29.6 2 190 69.6 3+ 57 0.8 Education Basic 3 1.2 Secondary 16 6.3 Diploma 20 7.9 Degree 160 63.2 Master‘s degree and above 54 21.3 Ethnicity Ga 55 21.7 Akan 111 43.9 Northern 47 18.6 Ewe 31 12.3 Others 9 3.6 Religion Christianity 203 80.2 Islam 48 19.0 Others 2 0.8 Out of the 253 sample surveyed 52.6% were males while the rest were females. Their ages ranged from 15 to 45 years with age group 15-25 forming the majority (139 representing approximately 55%). Majority of 214 representing 84.5% had tertiary education from first degree and above. By ethnicity the Akans formed the majority representing 44% of the sample while the rest were distributed among the other ethnic groups. The sample was mainly dominated by Christians representing 80.2% while the Muslims formed only 19% (Refer to Table 1). 48 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 2: Summary of Descriptive Statistics, Reliability Analysis, Skewness and Kurtosis of the Variables in the Study (N = 253) Variable M e an SD Skewness Kurtosis Cronbach α Traditional GRI 14.58 6.37 .059 -1.28 0.77 Modern GRI 14.84 3.02 -.473 -.209 0.74 Religiosity 51.62 4.50 -.622 .092 0.72 Instrumental MR 62.49 7.06 -.463 -.224 0.83 Relational MR 82.78 11.17 -.285 2.13 0.68 Marital satisfaction 15.17 3.79 -1.06 1.89 0.88 The interrelationships between all the variables study were explored using the Pearson‘s Product-Moment correlation coefficient test. The results are presented in table 2 below. Table 3: Pearson Product moment correlations among the study variables Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Traditional GRI - 2. Modern GRI .036 - 3. Instrumental MR .23* -.26* - 4. Relational MR -.394** .363* -.048 - 5. Religiosity .047 .156* -.006 .046 - 6. Marital Satisfaction -.394** .220** .225 ** .418** .108* - N=253, *= p<.05, **= p<.01. The Pearson product moment correlation was conducted to check the relationship among the study variables. The Gender role ideology as a predictor has two dimensions of traditional and modern. Marital role serves mainly as a mediator and has two dimensions of instrumental and relational. Religiosity as a continuous variable was also used as a predictor. The continuous variable marital satisfaction served as the criterion variable. Reliability analyses based on the total sample revealed the following Cronbach alphas; Traditional Gender Role Ideology scale (TGRI) α = 0.77, Modern Gender Role Ideology (MGRI) α = 0.74, Religiosity α = 0.72, Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) α = 0.83, Relational Marital Role (RMR) α = 0.68 49 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh and Marital Satisfaction α= 0.88. The acceptable level of internal scale reliability has been varied among different commentators but it normally ranges between 0.6 and 0.7 as absolute minimum (Kline, 1993; cited in Brewerton & Millward, 2001). The correlation matrix in Table 3 shows significant relationships between the predictors and the dependent variable. For example, there was a negative relationship between TGRI and MS (r = -.394, p< .01) while a significant positive relationship was observed between MGRI and MS (r = .220, p< .01). Religiosity was also found to have a significant positive relationship with MS (r = .159, p< .05). Hypotheses Testing Two statistical tests were used to analyze the hypotheses. These were the Pearson‘s Product- Moment correlation coefficient and Hierarchical Multiple regression. Relationship between Dimensions of Gender Role Ideology, Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction Hypothesis 1: Traditional gender role ideology will explain more variance in marital satisfaction than modern/egalitarian gender role ideology when age, sex marital status, and education are controls. The hierarchical multiple regressions as used in testing this hypothesis. 50 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 4: Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis for Dimensions of Gender Role Ideology as Predictors of Marital Satisfaction Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B Std. Error β T Sig R2 Step 1 Age -.306 .239 -.124 -1.281 .202 Level of Education .964 .201 .340 4.803 .000 Sex -.235 .564 -.031 -.416 .678 Duration of marriage .063 .051 .120 1.233 .219 Step2 Traditional GRI -.099 .056 -.167 -1.724 .086 .099 Modern GRI .402 .088 .320 3.804 .000 Step 3 Religiosity .091 .054 .108 1.811 .072 0.11 Age ; young = 0 (20-40) Old = 1(41- 60), Education; Low education = 0 (no educ.– Secondary), High Educ. = 1(Diploma and above ), sex (male=0, female =1 ), duration of marriage; Short = 0 (less than 5 years), Long = 1 (5 years and more ). The demographic variables were dummy coded and entered in Step 1. In Step 2, the two dimensions of GRI, traditional and modern components were entered and in Step 3, religiosity was entered. The model was statistically significant, (F (2, 214) = 157.626, p < .001), and accounted for approximately 34% of the variance in marital satisfaction (R2= .335, Adjusted R2 = .289). The control variables entered in Step 1 did not account for significant variance in the criterion [F (2, 204) = 6.523, p<.091]. The total variance accounted for by GRI dimensions was significant ∆R2=.099 [F (2, 204) = 9.16, p< .001]. Traditional gender role ideology received the strongest weight accounting for 57% of the variance in MS while modern gender role ideology accounted for 22% of the variance in MS. Religiosity also predicted MS significantly [F (1, 204) = 9.16, p =.001]; explaining about 11% of the variance in MS. From the analyses above, the hypothesis which states that traditional gender role ideology will explain more variance in marital satisfaction than modern/egalitarian gender role ideology when age, sex marital status, and education are controlled was supported by the data. 51 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Hypothesis 2: There will be a significant positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction. The multiple regression result in table 4 above shows a significant contribution of religiosity to marital satisfaction. It implies that, couples with higher religiosity tended to be highly satisfied in their marriage compared with their counterparts. H3: Mediation effects of dimensions of marital role on the relationship between dimensions of gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. Mediation analysis was conducted to test the prediction that marital role will mediate the relationship between gender role and marital satisfaction. Since there are two dimensions of marital role and to avoid complication in interpretation, two mediation analyses were conducted, one for each of the dimensions on marital role. The specific hypotheses tested were: a. Instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. b. Instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. c. Relational marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. d. Relational marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. The mediation effect of the dimensions of MR was explored using Baron and Kenny‘s (1986) approach. There are four steps in mediation analysis. First, the initial variable or predictor variable must account for significant variance in the outcome variable. This step establishes that there is an effect that may be mediated (Path A‘). Secondly, predictor variable (X) must correlate with the mediator (M) (Path B‘). The third step involves showing that the mediator 52 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh affects the original outcome variable (Path C‘). Because the mediator cannot be simply correlated with the outcome variable, the mediator and the outcome may be correlated because they are both caused by the predictor variable. In all the cases the demographic variables of age, education, sex, and duration of marriage were controlled for. These demographic variables were dummy coded as follows; age ; young = 0 (20 - 40), Old = 1(41- 60), Education; Low education = 0 (no educ.– Secondary), High Educ. = 1(Diploma and above ), sex (male=0, female =1 ), duration of marriage; Short = 0 (less than 5 years), Long = 1 (5 years and more ). Table 5: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of Marital Satisfaction (MS) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.306 .237 -.124 -1.290 .198 Level of Education .964 .199 .340 4.837 .000 Sex -.235 .560 -.031 -.419 .676 Duration of marriage .063 .051 .120 1.242 .216 Step 2 Traditional GRI -.04 .056 -.23* -3.47 .001 R2=.012,* = p<.05 The overall model was statistically significant, (F (6, 214) = 9.300, p < .001). The demographic variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for any significant variance in the criterion F (4, 210) = 6.627, p<.091]. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis to examine the effect of Traditional GRI on marital satisfaction is significant [F (6, 205) = 9.16, p=.000]; explaining about 11.2% of the variance in MS (B = -.23, t(203) = -3.47, p =.001). This establishes Path ―A‖ which is the first condition in mediation analysis. 53 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 6: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of instrumental Marital Role (IMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.354 .236 -.144 -1.497 .136 Level of Education .943 .198 .333 4.765 .000 Sex -1.480 .809 -.195 -1.829 .069 Duration of marriage .073 .051 .138 1.433 .153 Step 2 Traditional GRI .34*.14 .056 5.06 .000 R2=.028, * = p<.05 The overall model was statistically significant, (F (4, 214) = 2.530, p < .000). The control variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in the marital satisfaction [F (8, 214) = 2.32, p =.190]. Regressing the TGRI scores on the first mediator, IMR scores was significant [F (8, 203) = 8.471, p<.000]; explaining about 3% of the variance in IMR (B = .34, t (203) = 5.06, p<.000). This effect establishes ‗Path B‘ which is the second condition in mediation analysis. 54 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 7: Result of the Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation Effect of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) on the relationship between TGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.422 .226 -.171 -1.869 .063 Level of Education .950 .189 .335 5.025 .000 Sex -2.392 .797 -.315 -2.999 .003 Duration of marriage .080 .048 .153 1.663 .098 Trad. GRI. on Marital Sat .067 .023 .14 1.06 .001 Step 2 Inst MR on Marital Sat -.02 .033 -.14* -2.00 .047 Trad. GRI on Marital Sat. .08 .053 .10 1.02 .307 * = p<.05 Consistent with previous analysis, the demographic variables entered in Step 1 did not account for significant variance in the marital satisfaction [F (4, 214) = 7.717, p<.063]. Regressing TGRI on MS was found to be significant in step 1[F (6, 205) = 9.16, p=.000]. In step 2, regressing the first mediator, IMR on MS controlling for TGRI and demographics was also significant, B = -.14, t (203) = -2.00, p =.047. But controlling for the mediator, TGRI scores were no longer a significant predictor of MS, [F (7, 204) = 8.342, p=.307], B = 1.0, t (203) = 1.02, p =.307. A Sobel test was conducted to determine whether the mediation was significant. The result shows a significant mediation effect (z = -2.57, p = .010).This establishes Path ‗C‘. Therefore the hypothesis which states that instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction was supported. 55 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In testing the mediation effect of the first mediator IMR, Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as predictor was regressed on Marital Satisfaction (MS) controlling for demographic factors (Refer to Table 5).The model was statistically significant, (F (7, 214) =9.747, p < .001).The demographic variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in the criterion [F (5, 209) = 10.424, p =.078]. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis to examine the effect of Traditional GRI on marital satisfaction is significant [F (6, 205) = 9.16, p=.000]; explaining about 1.2% of the variance in MS (B = -.23, t (203) = -3.47, p =.001). This establishes Path ―A‖ which is the first condition in mediation analysis. Table 8: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Traditional Gender Role (TGRI) as Predictor of Relational Marital Role (RMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.354 .236 -.144 -1.497 .136 Level of Education .943 .198 .333 4.765 .000 Sex -1.480 .809 -.195 -1.829 .069 Duration of marriage .073 .051 .138 1.433 .153 Step 2 Traditional GRI -.03 .056 -.16* -2.39 .018 R2=.017, * = p<.05 The overall model was statistically significant. (F (6, 214) = 2.631, p < .000), Again, the demographic variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in the criterion [F (8, 214) = 2.32, p =.190]. Controlling for the demographic variables, the regression of the TGRI scores on the second mediator, RMR was significant [F (6, 205) = 9.166, p =.000]; explaining about 2% of the variance in RMR (B = -.16, t (203) = -2.39, p =.018).This establishes Path ―B‖ which is the second condition for mediation analysis. 56 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 9: Result of the Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation effect of Relational Marital Role on the relationship between TGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.253 .228 -.103 -1.108 .269 Level of Education .656 .193 .231 3.392 .001 Sex -.847 .768 -.112 -1.103 .272 Duration of marriage .061 .049 .116 1.249 .213 Trad. on Marital Sat -.124 .058 -.207 -2.115 .036 Step 2 Relat. MR on Marital Sat. -.09 .022 -.22* -3.24 .001 Trad. GRI on Marital Sat. .08 .053 .10 1.02 .307 * = p<.05 The control variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in the criterion [F (4, 214) = 6.284, p =.055]. Regressing TGRI on MS was found to be significant in step 1[F (6, 205) = 9.16, p=.036]. The hierarchical regression model showed that the RMR on MS was significant controlling for TGRI, MGRI and demographics, B = - .22, t(203)= -3.24, p =.001 . But controlling for the mediator, TGRI scores were no longer a significant predictor of MS [F (7, 204) = 8.342, p =.307], (B = 1.0, t(203)= 1.02, p =.307). A Sobel test conducted to check the significance of the mediation shows a significant mediation effect (z = -2.57, p = .010).This establishes Path ‗C‘. Therefore the hypothesis which states that relational marital role will mediate the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction was confirmed. 57 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 10: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as Predictor of Marital Satisfaction (MS) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.387 .226 -.157 -1.710 .089 Level of Education .967 .190 .341 5.095 .000 Sex -1.433 .589 -.189 -2.434 .016 Duration of marriage .073 .048 .140 1.512 .132 Step 2 Modern GRI -.09 .088 -.22* -3.24 .001 R2=.122, * = p<.05, The overall model was statistically significant, (F(4, 214) = 6.627, p < .000). The control variables entered in Step 1 together did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 210) =7.185, p =.095].The regression of MGRI on MS was significant [F (8, 202) = 8.471, p =.001]; explaining about 12% of variance in MS, (b = -.22, t(203) = -3.24, p =.001).This establishes Path ‗A‘ which is the first condition for mediation analysis. Table 11: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as Predictor of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.354 .236 -.144 -1.497 .136 Level of Education .943 .198 .333 4.765 .000 Sex -1.480 .809 -.195 -1.829 .069 Duration of marriage .073 .051 .138 1.433 .153 Step 2 Modern GRI -.26 .089 -.15* -3.33 .011 R2=.081,* = p<.05 The overall model was statistically significant, (F(6, 214) = 9.300, p < .000). Here, the demographic variables entered in Step 1 also did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 214) = 9.747, p =.069]. The regression of MGRI on the first mediators, IMR scores was significant [F (8, 20) = 7.511, p =.001]. It explains about 8% of the 58 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh variance in IMR, (B = -.15, t(203)= -3.33, p =.011). This establishes Path ‗B‘ which is the second condition for mediation analysis. Table 12: Result of the hierarchical regression for the mediation effect of Instrumental Marital Role (IMR) on the relationship between MGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.253 .228 -.103 -1.108 .269 Level of Education .656 .193 .231 3.392 .001 Sex -.847 .768 -.112 -1.103 .272 Duration of marriage .061 .049 .116 1.249 .213 MGRI on -.01 .089 -.05ns -.84 .401 Marital Sat. Step 2 Inst MR on -.02 .033 -.14* -2.00 .047 Marital Sat MGRI on -.01 .089 -.05ns -.84 .401 Marital Sat. * = p<.05, ns = not significant. The demographic variables entered in Step 1 together did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 210) = 7.442, p =.073]. However the regression of MGRI on MS was significant in step 1 [F (8, 202) = 8.471, p =.001]. Regression of the first mediator, IMR on MS controlling for TGRI, MGRI and demographics in step 2 was significant, B = -.14, t(203)= -2.00, p =.047 but controlling for the mediator, MGRI scores did not predict MS, , [F (8, 202) = 11.131, p =.307] (B = -.05, t(203)= -.84, p =.401). A Sobel test conducted for the significance of the mediation revealed a significant mediation effect (z = -2.57, p = .010). This establishes Path ‗C‘. Therefore, the hypothesis which states that Instrumental marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction was supported. 59 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In testing the mediation effect of the second mediator RMR, Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as predictor was regressed on Marital Satisfaction (MS) controlling for demographic factors refer to (Table 10). The model was statistically significant, (F (5, 214) = 116.284, p < .001). The demographic variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 210) =7.185, p =.095]. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis to examine the effect of Modern GRI on marital satisfaction is significant [F (8, 202) = 8.471, p =.001]; explaining about 12% of variance in MS, (b = -.22, t(203) = -3.24, p =.001). This establishes Path ―A‖ which is the first condition in mediation analysis. Table 13: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Modern Gender Role (MGRI) as Predictor of Relational Marital Role (RMR) Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.354 .236 -.144 -1.497 .136 Level of Education .943 .198 .333 4.765 .000 Sex -1.480 .809 -.195 -1.829 .069 Duration of marriage .073 .051 .138 1.433 .153 Step 2 Modern GRI .04 .089 .38* 6.33 .000 R2 . 212, * = = p<.05, The overall model was statistically significant, (F(6, 214) = 6.284, p < .000). Again, the demographic variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 214) = 7.185, p =.072]. Controlling for the demographic variables, the regression of MGRI on the second mediator, RMR scores was significant [F (6, 205) = 9.166, p =.000]; explaining about 21% of the variance in RMR, (B = .38, t(203) = 6.33, p =.000).This establishes Path ―B‖ which is the second condition for mediation analysis. 60 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 14: Result of the Hierarchical Regression for the Mediation Effect of Relational Marital Role on the Relationship between MGRI and MS Controlling for Demographic Factors Model B SEβ β t p Step 1 Age -.253 .228 -.103 -1.108 .269 Level of Education .656 .193 .231 3.392 .001 Sex -.847 .768 -.112 -1.103 .272 Duration of marriage .061 .049 .116 1.249 .213 Modern GRI on Marital Sat. -.124 .058 -.207 -2.115 .036 Step 2 Relational MR on Marital -.09 .022 -.22* -3.24 .001 Sat. Modern GRI on Marital Sat. -.01 .089 -.05 -.84 .401 * = p<.05 The control variables entered in Step 1 altogether did not account for significant variance in marital satisfaction [F (4, 210) = 9.747, p =.065]. However the regression of MGRI on MS was significant in step 1[F (8, 202) = 9.462, p =.036].The hierarchical regression in step 2 showed that the RMR was significant controlling for TGRI, MGRI and Demographics, B = - .22, t(203)= -3.24, p =.001 . Controlling for the mediator MGRI scores did not predict MS [F (9, 202) = 6.536, p =.401], (B = -.05, t(203)= -.84, p =.401). A sobel test for the significance of the mediation indicate there was a significant mediation effect (z = -2.57, p = .010) establishing Path ‗C‘. In this regard, the hypothesis which states that relational marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction was also supported by the data. 61 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Diagrams Fig 3 β = -.167 β =.34 IMR β =-.14 TGRI MS β = -.16 RMR β =-.22 Fig.3a. Observed Regression and Mediation Model of the Relationship between Traditional Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction IMR β =-.15 β =-.14 MS MGRI β = -.38 RMR β =-.22 β = .320 Fig.3b. Observed Regression and Mediation Model of the Relationship between Modern Gender Role Ideology and Marital Satisfaction 62 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SUMMARY OF FINDINGS In summary, all the proposed hypotheses were supported. Consistent with prediction,  Traditional gender role ideology accounted for more variance in marital satisfaction than Modern gender role ideology (hypothesis 1)  There was a significant positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction. Thus couples who scored higher on religiosity experienced higher satisfaction compared to those who scored lower on religiosity. This was higher for couples with modern gender role ideology than couples with traditional gender role ideology. (hypothesis 2)  Marital role significantly mediated the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. (hypothesis 3)  Both instrumental and relational marital roles significantly mediated the relationship between traditional gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. The mediation effect was stronger for instrumental marital roles than relational marital roles.  Both instrumental and relational marital roles also significantly mediated the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. The mediation effect was appreciably higher for both dimensions of marital role but higher for instrumental roles. In a nutshell, the data analyses confirmed all the research hypotheses proposed. The next chapter therefore discusses the findings and their implications for future research, policy making and social interventions. 63 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION INTRODUCTION The study aimed at exploring the relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. In addition, the study assessed the relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction and the extent to which marital role mediates the association between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction in the Ghanaian context. This section discusses the major findings of the study. Relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction Consistent with our prediction, traditional gender role ideology was found to explained more variance in marital satisfaction than modern gender role ideology. In other words, couples with modern gender role ideology (strict adherence to beliefs of gender equality and flexibility) experienced more inter-spousal congruence leading to a higher marital satisfaction compared to couples with traditional gender role ideology. Other recent studies from the West also supported this claim (e.g. Jain, 2014; Xu & Lai, 2004; Lavee & Katz, 2002). However, this contradicts the findings of Adonu (2005) who found that in Ghana, traditional marriages are the most stable compared to egalitarian. With the patriarchal nature of the Ghanaian culture which is characterized by male hegemony and female subordination, the tendency of ―perceived congruence‖ between spouses is high. The reason is that, deep inside the psyche of the Ghanaian, the woman ought to submit to the lordship of the husband (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). Thus, whether there is a true consensus between a couple based on a particular decision or not, the husband has the final say. In fact, it is a matter of social ridicule if it is known that a man follows the decision of her wife 64 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh instead of making one himself on important issues (Gyekye, 1996). In our ―culture of silence‖ women may not necessarily be satisfied with some marital arrangements but do not have that moral authority to raise objections. Such act of assertiveness by the woman may be interpreted as disrespectful and may lead to battering of the woman by the husband (Nukunya, 2003). This system does not promote intimacy, flexibility and inter-spousal congruence in the marriage. Inter-spousal congruence according to Kim (1992) comes about when a couple experience similarity in their beliefs, attitude, effective communication and some cohort effects (e.g. close age and educational gaps) among others. In Ghana until recently, the age gap between couples is normally wide (at least 3-5years) or more depending on the ethnic group (Nukunya, 2002: 153). This age effect psychologically promotes the domineering tendency of the men which is reinforced by the cultural mores. In addition, men in the traditional system were given more opportunities to attend higher institution of learning compared to women thereby increasing the educational gap. This denies women of more bargaining power, gives men more enlightenment, economic power and technical know-how. Again, men assume leadership roles invariably and relegate women to positions of subservience (Dodoo, 1992). This is even evident in the religious settings. In the early predominant religious groups in Ghana such as the traditional African religion, Islam and the orthodox churches (Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian), women are not allowed or equipped to take leadership roles In economics terms, women were also in the disadvantaged position and depend on their husbands. Thus, although women trade (selling foodstuff in markets), their work is often considered economically not viable (Gyekye, 1996; Miller & Kannae, 1999). They are often 65 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh manipulated or driven by passion for the family to purchase basic necessities for the home such as foodstuff, children‘s clothes and household consumables without saving against odd moments compared to men (Gyekye, 1996). From the discussion above, traditional gender role ideology is associated with conditions which undermine inter spousal congruence. Although couples with traditional gender role ideology may have similar gender role beliefs as a result of their constant exposure to similar conditions in their entire life course as the life course theory posits (Elder, 1998), it is obvious that traditional beliefs do not promote true equity and congruity. Consequently, there is minimum or no reciprocity in traditional marriages despite the rapid changes in the social structure. In most cases, women assume most of the domestic responsibilities while they also help in breadwinner roles. According to the social exchange theory (Homans, 1961), marital satisfaction becomes impossible when there is minimal or no reciprocity in the social exchanges that take place in the marriage hence the finding. Again, despite the rapid global changes and the penetration of the forces of modernization, there is a significant persistence of traditional values and cultural forces in most African cultures (Dion & Dion, 1996). Notwithstanding, these forces of change were known to bring much exposure and enlightenment than in the past especially in the Ghanaian culture where its influences are very notable. For instance, these changes were noted to strengthen marriage ties at the expense of kinship ties (Nukunya, 2003: 149). Factors such as less contact with kin, higher education, social anonymity, nuclear family system, considerable economic independence, exposure to the mass media, social and geographical mobility are associated with urbanization and are the center of the individualist culture (Hofstede, 2001). These forces of change have permeated the Ghanaian collectivistic system to the extent that social 66 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh experiences are now increasingly oriented towards these individualist tendencies, than the collectivistic. Education among others was one of the most influential agents of change and socialization that function hand in hand with early Christian missionary activities in Ghana. One of the effects of education is its influence on the general outlook in life of the individual. As people were introduced to more reading materials, they acquire more knowledge which has a greater influence on their outlook in life (Nukunya, 2003). In addition, students come in contact with other peers in school which widens their scope of social network and socialization. In most cases, males benefit while females were considered for the kitchen in most traditional setting. However, with the introduction of new educational policies such as the quota system, Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) among others, there is a high participation of females in schools. This has made education a vehicle for social integration and socialization in Ghana specifically. In line with this, Akotia and Anum (2012) in a Ghanaian sample found a significant positive relationship between education and female gender egalitarianism while a negative relationship existed between education and male gender egalitarianism. Thus, males irrespective of their level of education were mostly traditional in their ideology. This also suggests that, although both males and females have being enlightened through education, males still remain traditional because of their threatened authority and superiority while females challenge the status quo. This gap between male traditionalism and female egalitarianism closes as the changes in the social structure get more rapid. 67 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In effect, formal education has made people adopt western life styles, migrate to the cities for white collar jobs and search for greener pasture which weaken the traditional authority structure. The liberty to make dating choices with minimal involvement of families and without any ethnic inhibitions is high. In effect, there is a low power distance, high self- disclosure, better communication, minimal cohort differences (age, education gaps), improved attitude towards marriage especially among the young and middle age adults (Kim, 1992). These factors are associated with higher congruity between partners. Moreover, the extent to which gender role ideology directly affects marital satisfaction depends on the degree of inter-spousal congruence. Since these factors are more associated with egalitarianism, it is not surprising that in this study, we found egalitarianism to yield higher marital satisfaction. Relationship between Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction. Religion provides strict guidelines for behaviour and for marriage. For example, there are normative behaviours on how spouses treat each other. Therefore, people subscribe to the tenets of religion and strictly adhere to the doctrines and teachings of their faith especially, the Christian and Muslim religions which are very common in Ghana. In this study, one of the major objectives was to explore the relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction. It was found that couples who scored high on religiosity (stricter adherence to religious practices and strong belief in supernatural) were more likely to report satisfaction with marriage. Such people are likely to be not only conforming to expected behaviours but also be happy about marital arrangements and satisfied about marriage which in their view has been ordained by God. In effect, role confusions and power distance which often precipitate distress in marriages are reduced due to effective social exchanges in the marriage. 68 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Apart from the beliefs in the supernatural, religion to the African is a medium of self- expression, entertainment and enjoyment (Nukunya, 2003: 126). The early mainline Christian churches (Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian) took converts from their environment, by preventing them from dancing and using music they are familiar with. This was corrected by the inception of the new independent Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian churches in Ghana (Adonu, 2005). With religion operating in tandem with education, religious teachings of these religious groups on marriage and other social issues in cultural terms is an accelerator of westernization since many of the traditional African cultural practices were frowned upon and considered as typically unchristian (Assimeng, 1989). For instance polygamy, sacrifice and believe in ancestors were frowned upon. On the other hand, the religious teachings offered by the Moslems promote the traditional cultural system which emphasized on male hegemony and female subordination. Islam was therefore highly endorsed by traditional rulers especially those in the north and some parts of the south (Nukunya, 2003). For instance, polygamy and the sacrifices of animals which were part of the traditional system were endorsed by Islam. Although religion comes with education, Islamic religion was not involved in any form of institutionalized formal education which was known to enhance their exposure and enlightenment. To its best, most of the teachings offered were based on strict Islamic doctrines (Nukunya, 2003). With the high connections between Islam, the traditional system and formal education, there is no doubt that Islamic couples are traditional in their gender role ideology. The dimensions of religiosity measured in this study promote commitment, forgiveness and sacrifice. These relational virtues encourage the commitment of partners to fulfill their roles and responsibilities, handle conflict in a constructive manner. These coping virtues buffer the 69 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh effects of stress in marriage which in turn increases marital well-being. This finding is also consistent with some western studies (e.g. Mahoney, 2010) who also found a positive association between religiosity and marital satisfaction. Despite the positive relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction, it is still argued that the high rate of divorce in Ghana is due to the increasingly outrageous number of charismatic churches. This is because a significantly high percentage of divorce cases recorded were mostly Christian couples who are mainly confronted with issues such as denominationalism, religious homogamy and doctrinal differences. Indeed, the statistics may affirm this but it does not necessarily mean that the churches are solely the cause of divorce. In fact, Christianity has its own challenges as far as culture is concerned. Its inception in Ghana changed many cultural systems that undermine equity and the right of women while still recognizing the headship of the man. Individuals become religious (intrinsically or extrinsically) depending on their view of religion (Paloutzian, 1996). In Ghana recently, individuals are extrinsically religious because of the social integrative function of religion (group identity and support). Here the focus is on the material benefits, wealth and the entire accompanying meritocracy but not the laid down procedures for successful living. Others who are intrinsically religion give preeminence to God and adhere to normative behaviours expected of them. The former is however common among the charismatic churches which lack sound biblical doctrines. On the whole religiosity has a significant positive relationship with marital satisfaction especially among modern marriages. 70 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Relationship between Gender Role Ideology, Marital Role and Marital Satisfaction It was hypothesized that marital role will significantly mediate the direct relationship between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. To enable us explore this complex relation, we statistically tested the relationship among the constructs but separately for traditional and modern gender roles with marital role as a mediator. It was found that both instrumental and relational marital roles mediated the traditional gender role ideology-marital satisfaction relationship. This implies that although gender role ideology predicts marital satisfaction, marital role was a factor in marital satisfaction. Thus, the extent to which gender role ideology (whether traditional or modern) predicts marital satisfaction also depends on how these ideologies are translated into marital role performance. The mediating effect was however found to be stronger for instrumental marital roles than for relational marital roles for traditional couples. For couples with traditional gender role ideology, their scores on the instrumental indoor, outdoor and childcare roles were higher compared to their scores on the relational marital role. In line with this, scholars have confirmed that in non-western systems (e.g. Ghana) marital relationships are maintained by mandatory commitment to instrumental roles instead of commitment based on emotional intimacy and relationship vitality (Triandis, 1995). Thus, marriage in the Ghanaian setting is characterized by high instrumental interdependence and minimal public expression of emotions compared to individualist settings where the construction of self is independent (Matsumoto, 2001). One major reason for this is, the gendered socialization given to individuals during childhood and early adulthood place more emphasis on instrumental roles at the expense of the relational. The affective components of relationship behaviour such as expressing affinity 71 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh towards each other, self-disclosure among others are not common practices in Ghana. Such practices are considered to be alien to the Ghanaian culture because it is believed that they could promote social vices which will defile the moral standards of society (Nukunya, 2003: 166). In effect, these behaviours are often not considered in the socialization process. This is evident in this study where behaviours which elicit actual affective responses were found to be less exhibited generally but specifically among couples with traditional gender role ideology. However, romantic love and other relational behaviours were found to be very crucial for both husband and wife‘s satisfaction (Goodman, 2000). The absence of a balanced reciprocity in the two dimensions of marital role will lead to an overall decline in satisfaction. For tradition couples, a likely explanation for their decline in marital satisfaction is that, they may have successfully translated their beliefs into marital role performance which is evident in their high performance of instrumental roles. However, there is little equity in the distribution of these roles according to the social exchange theory. For example, wives who hold more traditional attitudes still bear most responsibilities despite their active participation in the labour force. In effect, striking the balance between work and family demand without a corresponding spousal support may lead to role overload and perception of inequity. Wives therefore view their husbands as an emotional attachment figure and his ability to provide both emotional and instrumental support serves as the most important factor affecting the women marital quality (Sitrin, 2001). On the other hand, the men focused more on the instrumental aspects of their marriage (Goodman, 2000). The finding of this study implies that, men most likely receive their portion of support from their spouse without giving a sufficiently balanced reciprocal support to their spouse leading to low marital satisfaction. 72 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh On the other hand, couples with modern gender role ideology, it was expected that both instrumental and relational marital role will mediate the relationship between modern gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. In line with this expectation, we found the mediating effect for both instrumental and relational marital roles to be higher than in the case of traditional couples. Modern couples are not bound by any strict rules but negotiate their own set of rules for their marriage. In effect, the excess societal burden and demands are minimal. The congruence that comes with performing various roles in the marriage is borne out of negotiation and understanding than by any social prescriptions with its inhibition effects. This also implies that, there will be positive social exchanges between couples and low perceived deprivation. In addition, with high negotiation, the relative contribution of each couple to decision making and other marital engagement is high. It also implies that power distance between couples is low facilitating more open communications and interdependence. The support modern couples give to each other reduces the role overload leading to work-family balance. The closeness, open communication suggests that affection and the relational roles are of much significance to modern couples. Though these roles are not included as part of the socialization system, with a high level of exposure through education, mass media and others, people make conscious efforts to learn some other adaptive behaviour which enhance their survival in the marriage. With a high understanding between couples, expectation sufficiency will be high and the variances that come due to lack of reciprocity reduces. This leads to an overall evaluation of the marriage as satisfactory. Implications of the findings The findings of this study have some practical implications for married couples, marriage counselors and yet-to-be couples. Firstly, with respect to the positive association between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction, socialization is very critical factor. Although 73 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh childhood socialization is very important as those early years are the formative years of the child, socialization throughout one‘s entire life course as found in this study will be more beneficial. This will foster constancy in gender role ideology, spousal congruence, and appropriate marital choices and the decisions individuals make. In addition, giving appropriate socialization helps reduce gender differences, filial piety and the inferior mind set about women. This in the long round will enhance the individuals‘ understanding of the need to support one‘s spouse in marriage in order to achieve marital satisfaction and harmony. This may improve the stability of the marriage and a decline in the rate of marital dissolution and its accompanying social stigmas. Secondly, the positive effects of religiosity on marriage have much social and marital significance. For instance, religion serves as a buffer of stress in times of marital challenges which enables couples to cope until they come into terms. It is therefore necessary for counselors to educate, encourage and guide couples and yet –to- be couples to hold on to and improve their spiritual for a happy marriage. In addition one major challenge that comes with religiosity is denominationalism where couples belong to different religious facets due to doctrinal issues in the church or couples inability to reconcile their religious beliefs. This may affect the socialization of children and even their personal devotional lives. With this understanding, yet-to–be couples should also be encouraged to have similar religious denominations or affiliations. Assistance can also be given to those who find themselves in that situation to have a common ground with more flexibility on how they handle issues pertaining to their religion. Love and affection as perceived by westerners are not totally absent in the Ghanaian context. This aspect of the marital life is only subjugated in the background and often overlooked 74 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh during socialization because culture does not encourage such intimate details to be expressed publicly and to children. In this study however, emotional aspect of the marriage was found to be salient in achieving success. The reason is that a true affection towards one‘s spouse will encourage the individual to support and overlook what society has to say. If such dispositions are not part of the individual, the tendency to be insensitive and rigid about the demands of one‘s spouse will be high. When this is well balanced with the instrumental roles in the marriage there will be more stability than experienced today. Also, the mediation effect of the two dimensions of marital role suggests that although our beliefs about the roles of men and women in marriage predict marital satisfaction, this complexity can be better understood in terms of how these beliefs are successfully translated into performed marital roles. In recent times there is a high participation of women in the labour force which comes with high work demand and changing marital roles. This implies that the gender role ideology that promote more spousal support, flexibility and a high balance between instrumental and relational marital roles should lead to high marital satisfaction. In this study, modern gender role ideology was associated with these characteristics. This again implies that a more drift towards egalitarianism in Ghana can lead to a decline in marital dissolution and higher satisfaction for couples. This can be promoted through socialization which discourage female subjugation and support gender similarity. 75 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Limitation of the study The data were obtained by self-report measures and this may be affected by common method variance (Avolio, Yamarino & Bass, 1981) which is the overlap in variance between two variables attributed to the type of instrument used rather than the relationship between the constructs. This may bias the results concerning associations. Notwithstanding, the nature of this study could only resort to self-report measures. However, Clegg (1983) noted that longitudinal studies could help understand more the interplay between variables and challenges that come with self-report measure. The sampling is another issue worth noting. Convenience sampling is a non-probability sampling technique; mainly volunteers of various ethnic educational and religious backgrounds should be targeted. However, majority of the sample used were highly educated and had closer age differences in the city. The number of participants who had little education was few in the sample. Couples in the rural areas were also not included in the sample. Also, older couples were also not extensively sampled compared to younger couples and this may affect the generalizability of findings to the whole population. Also, the questionnaire used for this study was in English, second language for most people. This also affects the selection of the participants. Majority of participants who responded to the questionnaire were educated so they can read and respond to the questionnaire items themselves. This was however not balanced with the uneducated married people and this comes with the risk of interpreting the questionnaire items and the biases it may introduce. This may undermine the generalizability of findings to the whole population. 76 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Recommendations Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that more intentional mentorship should be given to the youth and yet to marry individuals periodically. Family counselors and religious leaders should take the initiative to counsel couples and families on how modernization has brought about changing roles of males and females. Couples should be counseled on how to adjust and cope with these changing roles in our modern society. Future research should also examine the moderating role of religiosity in the gender role ideology marital satisfaction relationship. Couple analysis should also be considered instead of individual responses of each individual. Other sections of the Ghanaian population such as Muslims, married individuals in the rural areas, and those who had little or no education should be considered in future studies. This will give a more holistic view of the various cross section of the Ghanaian population which will enhance the generalizability of findings. Researchers in the area of marital satisfaction and gender role ideology in Ghana can also consider longitudinal studies in this area. This kind of longitudinal data could provide useful insights into the construction of gender role ideology. It would also enable stronger causal predictions to be made between gender role ideology and marital satisfaction. 77 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Conclusion Traditional values and cultural practices have a great impact on marital discord within the study area. Perceptions of gender roles in social life generally have been carried over into marriage such that husbands assume more power over wives. However, it was observed that with more exposure and modernization, there is a more drift towards egalitarianism in Ghana. In effect egalitarian gender role ideology predicts higher marital satisfaction than traditional gender role ideology. This reduces the work overload on women especially and improves their work-family balance. The level of religiosity has a positive impact on various facets of their lives and more especially their marital well-being and satisfaction. With high levels of religiosity people begin to understand and appreciate that the institution of marriage is ordained by God and needed to be given due recognition and by this understanding, behaviours that undermine the success of marriage will be minimized leading to high marital satisfaction. Contrary to popular opinion in literature, egalitarian gender role ideology was found to correlate with high religiosity leading to higher satisfaction. This again buttress the point that egalitarian couples are not bound by those strict traditional norms so are able to live out what they belief without it being interpreted as culturally inappropriate. One other conclusion drawn from this study was the fact that both instrumental and relational marital role in the marriage are salient to achieve couples‘ satisfaction. When these roles are balanced and performed marital satisfaction will be high. This balance comes through effective social exchanges that take place between couples and this comes with egalitarianism. Egalitarian gender role ideology may not lead to higher or lower marital quality unless it is translated successfully into egalitarian marital role performance. 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Journal of Marriage and Family, 47(3), 609-618. Zimmerman, T. S., Haddock, S. A., Current, L. R., & Ziemba, S. (2003). Intimate partnership Foundation to the successful balance of family and work. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 31, 107-124. Zvonkovic, A. M., Schmiege, C. J., & Hall, L. D. (1994). Influence strategies used when couples make work/family decisions and their importance for marital satisfaction. Family Relations, 43, 182-188. 107 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh APPENDIX A GENDER ROLE IDEOLOGY AND MARITAL SATISFACTION: A STUDY AMONG MARRIED COUPLES IN GHANA This questionnaire is designed to collect your views on how beliefs about the roles of men and women in marriage will affect the roles couples perform in the marriage and their marital satisfaction. I therefore seek your consent to participate in this study. As one of the respondents, your contribution will be very significant in drawing conclusion for this study. Information provided in this questionnaire will be kept confidential and used for educational purposes only. You are not required to write your name or indicate any form of identification. If you have any comment, questions or need any clarification on any question in any section, please contact me through the address below. Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Legon Philip Offei Adenyo (Researcher) 0246299299 philipadenyo@gmail.com SUPERVISORS Prof. Charity S. Akotia Dr. Adotey Anum Thank You 108 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SECTION A THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS MEASURE BELIEFS ABOUT THE ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN IN MARRIAGE. PLEASE INDICATE THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE BY TICKING (√) ONLY ONE CORRECT RESPONSE TO EACH QUESTION 1 Both the man and woman should contribute to the 1 2 3 4 5 household income. 2 It is much better for everyone concerned if the man is 1 2 3 4 5 the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family. 3 Men should share the work around the house with 1 2 3 4 5 women, such as doing dishes, cleaning and so forth 4 A woman‘s place is in the home, not in the office or 1 2 3 4 5 shop 5 A wife who carries out her full family responsibilities 1 2 3 4 5 doesn‘t have time for outside employment 6 The employment of wives leads to more juvenile 1 2 3 4 5 delinquency. 7 Women are much happier if they stay at home and take 1 2 3 4 5 care of their children. 8 A working mother can establish just as warm and 1 2 3 4 5 secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work 9 Having a job is the best way for a woman to be an 1 2 3 4 5 independent person 109 STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE NEUTRAL AGREE STRONGLY AGREE University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SECTION B THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS MEASURE HOW SATISFIED YOU ARE IN YOUR MARRIAGE. TICK (√) ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER THAT CORRESPONDS TO EACH QUESTION BELOW. 1. How rewarding is your relationship with 0 1 2 3 4 5 your partner? 2. In general, how satisfied are you with your 0 1 2 3 4 5 relationship? 3. I have a warm and comfortable relationship 0 1 2 3 4 5 with my partner THE QUESTION BELOW MEASURES YOUR DEGREE OF HAPPINESS IN YOUR MARRIAGE. PLEASE TICK (√) ONLY ONE CORRECT RESPONSE FROM THE OPTIONS. 4. Please indicate the degree of 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 happiness, all things considered, of your relationship. 110 EXTREMELY UNHAPPY NOT AT ALL FAIRLY UNHAPPY A LITTLE A LITTLE UNHAPPY SOMEWHAT HAPPY MOSTLY VERY HAPPY ALMOST COMPLETELY EXTREMLY HAPPY PERFECT COMPLETELY University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SECTION C THE QUESTIONS BELOW MEASURE YOUR LEVEL OF RELIGIOSITY. PLEASE TICK (√) ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER THAT CORRESPOND TO EACH QUESTION 1 I feel happy when I think of God 1 2 3 4 5 2 I will always believe in God 1 2 3 4 5 3 My thoughts often drift to God 1 2 3 4 5 4 Being a Christian is a joyous way to live 1 2 3 4 5 5 I am sure that Christ exists 1 2 3 4 5 6 I think about God all the time 1 2 3 4 5 7 God does not help me make decisions 1 2 3 4 5 8 Everything that happens to me reminds me of 1 2 3 4 5 God. 9 I pray for guidance 1 2 3 4 5 10 I cannot make important decisions without 1 2 3 4 5 God‘s help 11 I am certain that God is aware of everything I 1 2 3 4 5 do. 12 I try hard to live all my life according to my 1 2 3 4 5 religious beliefs 111 STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE NEUTRAL AGREE STRONGLY AGREE University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SECTION D THE ITEMS BELOW MEASURE THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU FULFILL WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU IN DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF YOUR FAMILY LIFE. PLEASE TICK (√) ONLY ONE RESPONSE How often do you fulfill the following indoor roles in your marriage? 1 Household chores (Cleaning, Cooking, Laundry 1 2 3 4 5 & Mending cloths) 2 Handle financial matters 1 2 3 4 5 3 Repairs & replacements of household items 1 2 3 4 5 4 Hosting friends and visitors 1 2 3 4 5 How often do you fulfill the following outdoor roles in your marriage? 1 Attend community welfare meetings 1 2 3 4 5 2 Yard work–cleaning & weeding around the 1 2 3 4 5 house 3 Making complaints to the landlord/ landlady or 1 2 3 4 5 service providers (ECG, etc) 4 Planning outdoor social activities (e.g.) keep fit, 1 2 3 4 5 sightseeing, visiting the beach etc. 5 Picking children to and from school 1 2 3 4 5 How often do you fulfill the following child care roles in your marriage? 112 NEVER NEVER NEVER RARELY RARELY RARELY SOME TIMES SOMETIMES SOMETIMES FREQUENTLY FREQUENTLY FREQUENTLY VERY FREQUENTLY VERY FREQUENTLY VERY FREQUENTLY University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1 Sex education for children 1 2 3 4 5 2 Child disciplinarian and coach 1 2 3 4 5 3 Take the child to the doctor /herbalist 1 2 3 4 5 4 Attend parent/teacher (P.T.A) meetings 1 2 3 4 5 5 Assist the child in doing homework 1 2 3 4 5 How often does your spouse support in performing the following relational roles? 1 Conflict resolution 1 2 3 4 5 2 Establishing and maintaining effective 1 2 3 4 5 communication with spouse 3 Stay connected to family members of spouse 1 2 3 4 5 4 Provide general support to family members 1 2 3 4 5 5 Giving emotional support to spouse 1 2 3 4 5 SECTION E DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS PLEASE TICK (√) THE APPROPRIATE ANSWER THAT APPLIES TO YOU. ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS 1 Sex Male Female 2 Number of children a)1 b) 2 c)3 d)4 e)5 f) More (specify) ----------- -------------- 3 Age : a) 20-25 (b)26-30 (c)31-35 (d)36-40 (e)41-45 (f)46- 50 g) More (specify) -------------------- 4 Partner’s age: a)20-25 (b)26-30 (c)31-35 (d)36-40 (e)41-45 f)46-50 g) More (specify) ---------------- 5 Educational Level: a)No education b)Middle School/JSS c)Secondary School 113 NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES FREQUENTLY VERY FREQUENTLY University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh d)Diploma e) First degree f) Masters and above (g) Others (specify)------------------ 6 Partner’s level of education: a)No education b)Middle School/JSS c)Secondary School d) Diploma e) First degree f) Masters and above (g) Others (specify)---------------------- 7 Ethnicity: a) Akan b) Ewe c) Ga, d) Guan e) Mole Dagbani (f) If others specify------ 8 Religion: a)Christian b)Islam c)Traditional d) Other (specify)------------------------ 9 Partner’s ethnicity: a) Akan b) Ewe c) Ga, d) Guan e)Mole Dagbani (f)If others specify -------------- 10 Employment status: a) Unemployed (b)Self-employed c)Full time employment d) Part- time 11 Partner’s employment status a) Unemployed (b)Self-employed c)Full time employment d) Part- time 12 Monthly income in Cedis (a) 100-500 (b) 500-1,000 (c) 1,000-1,500 (d) 1,500-2,000 (e) 2,000-2,500 (f) 2,500-3,000 (g) 3,000 + 13 Partner’s monthly income in Cedis (a) 100-500 (b) 500-1,000 (c) 1,000-1,500 (d) 1,500-2,000 (e) 2,000-2,500 (f) 2,500-3,000 (g) 3,000 + 14 Duration of your married. a)3years b)4years c) 5years d) 6years e) (Above) specify---- --------------------------- Additional comments If you have any further comments, please write them below. ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… Thank you. 114