Stressful Work Trajectories and Depressive Symptoms in Middle-Aged Couples: Moderating Effect of Marital Warmth

The present study investigated the decade-long actor and partner infleunces between husbands' and wives' trajectories of stressful work conditions (SWCs) and their depressive symptoms while also considering the moderation of these influences by spousal warmth.

Participants were 330 middle-aged dual-earner couples from the Iowa Midlife Transitions Project. Husbands and wives reported on own SWCs and reported on parenter's warmth in the years of 1991, 1992, and 1994. Depressive symptoms for husbands and wives were measured by the SCL-90-R in 1994 and 2001. Structural equation models, growth curves, and longitudinal data were used to perform our analyses.

For husbands and wives, trajectories of SWCs over early middle years (1991-1994) contributed to depressive symptoms in 1994. Notably, for husbands and wives, the severity (level) of SWCs in 1991 had a persistent influence on depressive symptoms a decade later (2001). For husbands, under conditions of wives' low warmth, SWCs exerted a relatively strong influence on their depressive symptoms. However, under conditions of high warmth from wives, most of these influences were greatly diminished.

Results from the current study indicate that contextual life experiences can have a persistent health influences over the life course.