EMPLOYMENT STATUS, GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES, AND MARITAL DEPENDENCE IN LATER LIFE

Based on normative resource theory, this study explores whether couples' employment/retirement patterns relate to their perceptions of relative marital dependence, and whether these relationships are contingent on spouses' gender role attitudes. Analyses relying on a subsample of 763 couples from the National Survey of Families and Households suggest a reinforcing effect of gender role attitudes; that is, the positive association between a husband's retirement and his spouse's perceptions of his dependence on the relationship predominates among those couples in which one or both spouses abide by traditional gender role attitudes. The results further indicate that couples' employment/retirement plays a more important role for wives' than for husbands' perceptions of marital dependence.