An investigation of the attitude of married individuals towards social gender roles and its effects on the marriage satisfaction and psychological well-being

The aim of this study was to examine the attitude of married individuals towards social gender roles and its effects on the marriage satisfaction and psychological well-being. In addition, other areas whose effects on the marriage satisfaction and psychological well-being investigated were age, gender, level of education, socio-economical statues, level of education of their family and spouse, their type of marriage, length of their marriage, having or not having children. The population of this study consisted of the married couples in the Beyoğlu district of İstanbul province and the sample consisted of the 385 married couples (235 female, 150 male) who were interviewed in Beyoğlu district. Face to face interview method was utilized with the 385 married couples who were chosen by random sampling. The instruments of this study were: Social Gender Roles Scale developed by Zeyneloğlu (2008), Marriage Satisfaction Scale which was developed by Canel (2007), the Psychological Well-Being Scale developed by Ryff (1986) and translated into Turkish by Cenkseven (2004) and the personal information form developed by the researcher. The data gathered was analyzed using the SPSS program. According to the findings; there was a significant difference by means of genders of the married individuals, their level of education, level of education of their family and spouse, and their attitudes towards social gender roles, marriage satisfaction and psychological well-being. Socio-economical status, their type of marriage, length of their marriage and whether or not having children had a significant effect on only the social gender roles and marriage satisfaction while the length of marriage effected only the marriage satisfaction and the age of getting married effected only the attitudes towards the social gender roles. Yet, there was not a significant difference between the participants' age and the attitude of married individuals towards social gender roles and its effects on the marriage satisfaction and psychological well-being. In terms of the main objectives of this study; it was established that when the married individuals' equalitarian gender roles go up, their psychological well-being also goes up, but their marriage satisfaction goes down. The increase in marriage satisfaction was found to cause a decreasing effect on psychological well-being. These findings were discussed under the light of recent publications.