Summary information

Study title

Family Barometer 2003: Couple Relationships under Strain

Creator

Paajanen, Pirjo (Finnish Family Federation. Population Research Institute)

Study number / PID

FSD2130 (FSD)

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2130 (URN)

10.60686/t-fsd2130 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Family Barometers

The Family barometers series was launched by the Population Research Institute, a subdivision of the Finnish Family Federation, in 1996. The annual surveys revolve round family life, but each barometer has also its own theme. These have included assistance between different generations, sufficiency of public support and services, the division of domestic responsibilities, work-life balance, parenting, child-rearing, and children's pastimes and hobbies.

Abstract

The survey focused on couple relationships, marriage, and divorce. Views were probed on how important certain factors were to a good couple relationship (e.g. spouses have own friends and hobbies, spouses share many hobbies, good sex, mutual respect). The respondents were also asked whether they agreed with a number of statements relating to couple relationships, and how important certain things (e.g. children, job, hobbies) were to them. One question explored opinions on whether both spouses should participate equally in children's hobbies, household chores, taking care of elderly relatives, etc. The respondents' satisfaction with their current relationship, job, parenthood, financial situation, general health, sex life, etc. were charted. They were asked whom they had turned to when experiencing difficulties in the couple relationship, how often they had had conflicts with their spouse, and in what way these conflicts had been resolved. Satisfaction with different aspects of the relationship was charted. The respondents still married to their first spouse were asked whether they had ever considered divorce, and the divorced ones were asked whether both spouses had wanted to divorce. Views were probed on what factors the respondents considered might be or had been important for getting divorced (e.g. unfaithfulness, sexual problems, nagging, childlessness, unrealistic expectations, falling in love with someone else). The divorced respondents were asked whether things had improved or got worse after the divorce (e.g. relations with children, friends, ex-spouse or parents, happiness, housing, leisure time), and whether they regretted having got divorced. The respondents still married to their first spouse were asked what had been the most important reasons for staying in the relationship. Background variables included the respondent's gender, year of birth, how many months had known spouse before getting married, whether cohabited with spouse before marriage and...
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Methodology

Data collection period

02/2003 - 03/2003

Country

Finland

Time dimension

Cross-section

Analysis unit

Individual
Family

Universe

People resident in Finland, aged 25-50, who had married for the first time in 1995

Excludes: the Åland Islands

Sampling procedure

Probability: Stratified

Kind of data

Quantitative

Data collection mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper

Access

Publisher

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Publication year

2006

Terms of data access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Related publications

Not available