Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
The main objective of this research is to investigate the effect of homogamy on marital satisfaction. The population consisted of all married individuals aged 18 years and above in Tehran. The sampling method used was multistage sampling that consisted of stratified sampling, cluster sampling, and simple random sampling. The sample size comprised of 405 individuals who were selected from 18 municipal districts of Tehran (9 cells at northern Tehran, 9 cells at central Tehran, and 9 cells at southern Tehran). The dependent variable was marital satisfaction, which was assessed using Enrich test (a valid test for the assessment of satisfaction). Carlson’s age homogamy, François de Singly’s educational homogamy, Bossard and Boll’s religious homogamy, Greenblatt’s class homogamy, Collins’ occupational homogamy, income homogamy in exchange theory, Bossard’s geographic homogamy, Buchanan’s ethnic homogamy, and Collins’ homogamy in sexual beliefs were the hypotheses of this study (10 hypotheses).
The research was of survey type, and questionnaire was used as the method of data collection. The findings were categorized into three groups including descriptive (one-dimensional tables), explanatory (two-
dimensional tables), and theoretical (the relationship between theory and hypothesis).
Age homogamy was confirmed at 99.9%. In other words, marital satisfaction increases as age homogamy rises. Educational homogamy was also confirmed at 99.9%, which means that an increase in education homogamy comes with an increase in marital satisfaction. Religious homogamy was confirmed at 99.9%. Thus, marital satisfaction increases with religious homogamy. Class homogamy was confirmed at 99% confidence. So there is a positive and direct relationship between class homogamy and marital satisfaction. Occupational homogamy was confirmed at 99.7%, which means that an increase in occupational homogamy is accompanied with an increase in marital satisfaction. Income homogamy was rejected at 95%, i.e. there is no relationship between this type of homogamy and marital satisfaction. Residential homogamy was confirmed at 99.9% confidence. In other words, it increases with marital satisfaction. Both ethnic and sexual beliefs homogamy were confirmed at 99.9%. Finally, the overall homogamy hypothesis was confirmed to have a positive and significant relationship with marital satisfaction (99.9%). R value was obtained at 0.826. The coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.682, and adjusted coefficient of determination (adjusted R square) was 0.675. According to the results, 68% of the variance in the dependent variable (marital satisfaction) is explained by the independent variables. The remaining 32% consisted of effective factors that were not taken into account here.
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