Gender-typed attributes and marital satisfaction among Mexican immigrant couples: A latent profile approach

Informed by socioecological and dyadic approaches to understanding marriage, the current study examined the patterning of gender-typed attributes among 120 Mexican immigrant opposite sex couples and the subsequent links with spouses' reports of marital satisfaction. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify typologies of couples based on spouses' self-reported masculine and feminine attributes. Three couple profiles were identified: (a) Androgynous Couples, (b) Undifferentiated Couples, and (c) Mismatched Couples. Results from a mixed model ANCOVA showed profile differences in couples' marital satisfaction based on profile membership, suggesting that spouses in the Undifferentiated Profile were the least satisfied. Findings illustrate a lack of gender-typing at the individual and couple levels that challenge stereotypical and patriarchal depictions of Latino marital relationships and propose a more complex understanding of Mexican-origin spouses' gender-typed attributes than has yet been portrayed in the literature. The finding that couples with 1 androgynous partner (i.e., wives in the Mismatched Profile) reported similar levels of marital satisfaction to couples in the Androgynous Profile offers additional insights regarding how these qualities operate under the unique socioecological niches that Mexican immigrant couples inhabit-contexts that may place demands on spouses that challenge gendered and culturally bound depictions of marriage.