Goldberg and Sayer 2006.JMF

ABBIE E. GOLDBERG Clark University

ALINE SAYER University of Massachusetts at Amherst*

Lesbian Couples’ Relationship Quality

Across the Transition to Parenthood

The transition to parenthood is a time of stressfor many couples. Most research on the transi-tion to parenthood has been conducted withmiddle-class, heterosexual couples. The currentstudy uses multilevel modeling to examine pre-dictors of change in relationship quality (loveand conflict) during the transition to parent-hood in 29 lesbian couples. Predictors includedpersonality variables, work context variables,social context variables, and couple character-istics. Results suggest that personality and cou-ple characteristics were important predictors ofchange in love, whereas personality and ex-pected social support were salient predictors ofchange in conflict. The importance of researchon this key life transition for lesbian couples isdiscussed.

Change in relationship quality is one of themost frequently studied aspects of the transitionto parenthood. Studies of heterosexual coupleshave consistently documented decreased feel-ings of love and increased conflict across thetransition (e.g., Belsky & Rovine, 1990). Thesechanges are typically attributed to the disruptionof intimacy and communication that results

from the addition of a child into the maritaldyad. A limitation of the research on the transi-tion to parenthood and relationship quality hasbeen the tendency to study average rates ofchange in marital quality, as opposed to varia-tion in the pattern and extent of change. Someresearch has moved beyond examining centraltendencies to study the prediction of individualdifferences in relationship change across the tran-sition (Cox, Paley, Burchinal, & Payne, 1999).Belsky and Rovine examined patterns of changeamong couples whose relationship quality de-clined, remained stable, or increased across thetransition. They found that heterogeneity in pat-terns of change was associated with multiplefactors and that different patterns of changewere largely identifiable prior to the birth. Theirfindings underscore the importance of examin-ing variability within and across couples wheninvestigating change across the transition toparenthood.

Another limitation of the transition to parent-hood literature is the focus on heterosexual,middle-class couples (Cowan & Cowan, 1992).Some researchers have recognized the impor-tance of social class as a context and have stud-ied this transition in working-class couples(Goldberg & Perry-Jenkins, 2004). The empiri-cal literature on same-gender couples’ transitionto parenthood, however, is almost nonexistent.To date, the only prospective study of lesbiancouples is the National Longitudinal LesbianFamily Study (Gartrell et al., 1996, 1999), whichfollows 70 lesbian couples that include a comotheras well as a birth mother. Findings from this

Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester,MA 06101 ([email protected]).

*Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts,Amherst, MA 01003.

Key Words: conflict, lesbian, longitudinal, love, relationshipprocesses, transition to parenthood.

Journal of Marriage and Family 68 (February 2006): 87–100 87

study have been largely descriptive and havenot examined change in many of the basic con-structs that are typically studied across the tran-sition to parenthood, such as relationship qualityand mental health.

Bronfenbrenner (1988) has emphasized therole of context in development and has advo-cated for an interactionist approach that inte-grates person and context variables in predictingoutcomes such as relationship quality. Accord-ing to his ecological framework, individual devel-opment occurs within multiple and interactingcontexts, with influences ranging from distal,macrolevel settings (culture, class) to proximalsettings (family, work). Guided by this perspec-tive, we explored whether work and nonworkcontexts, as indexed by perceived support fromwork and family, predicted lesbians’ relation-ship quality across the transition to parenthood,controlling for the effects of individual charac-teristics such as personality or couple character-istics such as prebirth levels of relationshipmaintenance behaviors.

Individual Characteristics andRelationship Quality

Each individual’s personality characteristics playa significant role in shaping relationships withothers (Daley & Hammen, 2002). Whether oneis a generally negative or positive person hasimplications for how one experiences and per-ceives relationships. Although studies have linkedvarious aspects of personality to relationshipquality, neuroticism is the personality character-istic most consistently linked with negative rela-tionship outcomes (Karney & Bradbury, 1995).We expect that higher levels of neuroticism willbe negatively associated with lesbians’ feelingsof love and positively related to reports of con-flict across the transition to parenthood.

Couple Characteristics andRelationship Quality

Couple characteristics such as behaviors andattitudes may also be related to relationshipquality. Relationship maintenance behaviors in-cluding disclosure and communication have beenlinked to perceived marital quality (Canary &Stafford, 1992). Weigel and Ballard-Reisch(1999) found that wives’ use of maintenancebehaviors was positively related to both their

own and their husbands’ perceptions of maritalquality.

Division of labor has also been linked torelationship quality in heterosexual (Frisco &Williams, 2003) and lesbian couples (Chan,Brooks, Raboy, & Patterson, 1998). Severalstudies have found that perceptions of the divi-sion (e.g., satisfaction, fairness) matter more tomarital quality and satisfaction than the actualbehavior (Stevens, Kiger, & Riley, 2001).

In our study, we examine both prebirth rela-tionship maintenance and satisfaction with thedivision of housework. We expect that mainte-nance behaviors (defined as communication be-haviors designed to reduce costs and maximizerewards from the relationship) and satisfactionwith housework will both be positively relatedto love and negatively related to conflict.

Contextual Effects on Relationship Quality

Contextual influences may also influence rela-tionship quality. A supportive work environ-ment or support from one’s extended familymay mitigate the stressful effects of the transi-tion to parenthood on couples’ relationships.Lesbian couples face particular difficulties be-cause of their sexuality, such as discriminationor lack of recognition of their family from pro-fessionals and services as well as from theirextended families and communities. Contextualsources of support may be particularly impor-tant for this population (Oswald, 2002).

Work-family spillover refers to the notionthat one’s experiences in the work context affectone’s experiences in the family context, and theconverse. Objective aspects of the job, such aswork hours, have been linked to family interac-tions. Doumas, Margolin, and John (2003) foundthat for both men and women, working fewerhours was related to more positive reports ofmarital interaction. Other studies have found thatsubjective aspects of work are more importantthan objective aspects of work. Allen (2001)found that employee perceptions of the extentthat their workplace was supportive of theirfamily responsibilities mediated the relationshipbetween supervisor support and work-familyconflict. Greater perceived supervisor support andflexibility has also been linked to less work-family conflict (Moen & Yu, 2000).

Although little research has examined howspecific aspects of work contribute to work-family conflict for lesbians, a recent review

88 Journal of Marriage and Family

indicates that, in general, lesbians face employ-ment discrimination (Croteau, Anderson, Diste-fano, & Kampa-Kokesch, 2000). This suggeststhat the work environment, including relation-ships with coworkers and supervisors, can beparticularly stressful for lesbians. Peters andCantrell (1993) found that lesbians were lesssatisfied with relationships with coworkers thanwere heterosexual women. Based on this litera-ture, we chose to examine both objective andsubjective aspects of work. We expect that morework hours will be negatively related to loveand positively related to conflict, and greatersupport will be positively related to love andnegatively related to conflict.

Research with heterosexual couples suggeststhat mothers who reported lower levels ofsocial support are more likely to report lowermarital adjustment (Graham, Fischer, Crawford,Fitzpatrick, & Bina, 2000). Bryant, Conger, andMeehan (2001) reported that conflict in ex-tended family relations (e.g., discord with in-laws) has negative effects on marital stability.The link between social support and relation-ship quality has also been studied in same-gender couples. Studies have found that gayand lesbian couples were less likely to list fam-ily members as major sources of support andthat support from friends was more important torelationship satisfaction than support from fam-ily (Kurdek, 1988; Kurdek & Schmitt, 1987).These studies suggest that lesbians and gay menmay cope with family disapproval by findingalternative sources of support. In contrast, Caronand Ulin (1997) found that lesbian couples whoexperienced their families as being overtly ac-cepting and supportive reported higher relation-ship quality. Taken together, these findingssuggest that family support is important tocouple functioning under some conditions. Ofinterest is whether this support is of importanceduring the transition to parenthood as it isa phase when rejection or acceptance by one’sextended family may be particularly salient. Wehypothesize that higher levels of expected sup-port from one’s own and one’s partner’s familywill be positively related to love and negativelyrelated to conflict.

Research Questions

The current study examined relationship qualityacross the transition to parenthood in 29 com-mitted lesbian couples in which one member

was the biological mother of the child. Researchcomparing lesbian inseminating couples withheterosexual inseminating couples has foundthat nonbiological lesbian mothers may have aneasier transition to the parental role than nonbio-logical fathers, thus highlighting the genderednature of parenting and underscoring somebasic similarities between biological and nonbi-ological mothers (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001).Empirical research and clinical accounts, how-ever, also suggest that biological and nonbio-logical mothers experience the transition toparenthood differently (Gartrell et al., 1999;Weinstein, 2001). For example, Glazer (2001)noted that nonbiological mothers may feel a sim-ilar sense of exclusion from the neonatal dyadto that experienced by fathers but do not receivethe societal support that allows men to workthrough these feelings. In our study, we differ-entiate women on the basis of their roles andmodel separate change scores for biological andnonbiological mothers.

Questions about status. The first research focuswas relationship quality 1 month after the birthas prior studies suggest that relationship qualityis affected dramatically by the birth (Belsky,Spanier, & Rovine, 1983). Do biological andnonbiological mothers differ in levels of rela-tionship quality at this point, and, if so, whatindividual, couple, and context characteristicsare related to these differences?

Questions about change. A second researchfocus was change in relationship quality acrossthe 4-month transition to parenthood. Do bio-logical and nonbiological mothers display dif-ferential change in relationship quality, and, ifso, what individual, couple, and context charac-teristics are related to differences in change? Toour knowledge, there is no literature on changein lesbians’ relationship quality across the tran-sition to parenthood. Based on research onchange in heterosexual couples during the tran-sition to parenthood (Cowan & Cowan, 1992),we expect love to decrease and conflict to in-crease across the transition.

METHOD

Design

Our sample consisted of women in 29 commit-ted lesbian relationships who were preparing to

Lesbian Couples’ Relationship Quality 89

give birth to their first child via insemination.An additional inclusion criterion was that atleast one member of the couple had to be return-ing to work full time after the birth. Both part-ners were interviewed 1 month before the duedate (Time 1, hereafter T1) and 3 months afterthe birth (Time 2, hereafter T2). We chose thistime interval because we were interested inacute change, whereas other studies have inves-tigated a much longer span (Gartrell et al.,1999). Notices were posted in offices of gyne-cologists in Massachusetts, and study informa-tion was included in several Massachusetts gay/lesbian community newsletters. Calls for partic-ipants were posted on national Web sites per-taining to lesbian issues in order to obtain ageographically diverse sample. There is someevidence that Internet sampling is superior toother methods in recruiting lesbian samples thatare diverse with regard to income, education,and ethnicity (Mathy, Schillace, Coleman, &Berquist, 2002). Members of each couple wereinterviewed separately by phone; they were alsosent a questionnaire packet to return within 1week of the phone interview.

Sample

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics on thesample. Most participants were White, highlyeducated, and financially stable. Although thehigh educational levels might suggest high-status jobs, the women in this sample tended tobe employed in moderate-status occupations;this may be because of discrimination issues.We recognize that the small size and homogene-ity of our sample limits the generalizability ofour findings. Such homogeneity, however, canbe viewed as advantageous for detecting statisti-cal relationships as it restricts many sources ofextraneous variation. Women in this samplewere generally older than first-time mothers(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,2002). Couples had been together for about 6years. All mothers decreased their work hoursacross the transition, although nonbiologicalmothers worked more hours at both T1 and T2.

Measures

Relationship quality was assessed twice, at thebeginning and end of the study. All other varia-bles described here were measured prior to thebirth of the child.

Work hours. Women reported the number ofhours per week they spent in paid employmentat T1 (prebirth).

Occupational category. Socioeconomic indexscores, a measure of occupational prestige, werederived from women’s job descriptions (Nakao& Treas, 1992). These scores were then used toclassify women’s occupations into six categories:senior officials (e.g., physician), professionals(e.g., professor, pilot), associate professionals(e.g., teacher, nurse), technicians (e.g., accountsmanager), administrative support (e.g., clerk),and service/sales (e.g., cook).

Organizational support. Women completed an8-item scale designed to assess perceived orga-nizational support (Eisenberger, Huntington,Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986). On a scale of 1 ¼strongly disagree to 5 ¼ strongly agree, womenwere asked to choose the response that bestdescribed their work situation. Items include‘‘my organization is willing to help me when Ineed a special favor’’ and ‘‘if given the chance,my organization would take unfair advantage ofme.’’ The alpha coefficient estimated on oursample was .90.

NEO Personality Inventory—Revised, shortform. Women completed the 97-item NEOShort Personality Inventory, which assessesmajor aspects of personality: neuroticism, extro-version, openness, agreeableness, and conscien-tiousness (Costa & McCrae, 1992). On a scalefrom 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 5 ¼ stronglyagree, women chose the response that best de-scribed them. Items include ‘‘I often get angryat the way people treat me’’ and ‘‘I am a warmand friendly person.’’ In our study, we used theneuroticism subscale. The sample alpha coeffi-cient was .91.

Expected social support. Women reported theirperceptions of the support they expected toreceive from their own family of origin (parents,siblings) and from their partner’s family oncetheir baby was born. Support was defined as‘‘emotional, practical, or financial,’’ and womenwere asked to predict the degree to which theirfamily or their partner’s family would ‘‘be there’’for them and their partners once they becameparents. Women rated the level of support theyanticipated from their own family and from


their partner’s family on a scale of 1 ¼ not sup-portive to 5 ¼ very supportive.

Satisfaction with housework. Women wereasked, ‘‘How satisfied are you with the currentdivision of household tasks?’’ Responses wereon a 5-point scale anchored at 1 ¼ very dissatis-fied and 5 ¼ very satisfied.

Relationship questionnaire. Twenty-five itemsare distributed across four subscales: love, con-flict, ambivalence, and maintenance (Braiker &Kelley, 1979). In our study, the subscale mea-suring maintenance was used as a predictor, andthe subscales measuring love and conflict wereused as outcomes. Questions such as ‘‘Howmuch do you tell your partner what you want

TABLE 1. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR LESBIAN COUPLES

Biological Mothers (n ¼ 29) Nonbiological Mothers (n ¼ 29)

M SD Mdn M SD Mdn

Predictors

Neuroticism 2.7 .40 2.5y

.41

Time 1, work hours 38.0 11.1 49.6** 12.3

Organizational support 3.12 .64 2.99 .55

Expected support from one’s own family 4.2 .9 4.4 1.0

Expected support from partner’s family 4.2 1.2 3.8 1.3

Maintenance 6.06 1.07 5.89 1.23

Satisfaction with tasks 3.83 1.18 4.10 1.03

Outcomes

Time 1, love 7.9 .65 7.9 .64

Time 2, love 7.5 .91 7.5 .90

Time 1, conflict 3.8 1.2 3.4y

1.1

Time 2, conflict 4.2 1.3 3.9 1.0

Demographics

Age 35 5.6 36 37.7 .70 40

Relationship duration (years) 6.6 2.4 6.0

Time 1: hours of work/weeka

38.0 11.1 40 49.6 12.3 45

Time 2: hours of work/week 27.6 11.3 24 40.1 .81 40

Personal incomea

(in thousands of dollars) 43.9 27.5 35.5 71 55.1 48.5

% n % n

Ethnicity

White, non-Jewish 83 24 86

White, Jewish 14 4 10

Korean American 3 1 3

Educational attainment

H.S. diploma/vocational 14 4 14 4

Associate’s degree 7 2 7 2

Bachelor’s degree 7 2 21 6

Master’s degree 55 16 31 9

PhD/MD/JD 17 5 27 8

Occupational categoryb

Senior officials (SEI . 90) 8 2 3 0

Professionals (SEI . 80) 8 2 6 30

Associate professors (SEI . 70) 28 7 5 20

Technicians (SEI . 60) 28 7 9 20

Clerks (SEI . 50) 24 6 4 20

Service/sales (SEI . 30) 4 1 1 10

Note: t test.aEmployed women only.

bSocioeconomic index scores (SEI), a measure of occupational prestige, were derived from partici-

pants’ job descriptions and then used to classify women’s occupations into six categories (Nakao & Treas, 1992).

yp, .10. *p, .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.


or need from the relationship?’’ (maintenance),‘‘To what extent do you have a sense of‘belonging with your partner?’’’ (love), and‘‘How often do you and your partner argue?’’(conflict) are answered on a 9-point scale from1 ¼ not at all/not very much to 9 ¼ very much.At T1, the sample alphas for the maintenance,love, and conflict subscales pooled acrosswomen were .78, .74, and .65, respectively. AtT2, the alphas for the three subscales were .71,.87, and .79.

Analytic Strategy

When individuals are nested in couples, theiroutcome scores are likely to be correlated. Thisproblem of data interdependency has long beenrecognized by relationship researchers (Sayer& Klute, 2004). One solution is to use a model-ing strategy that estimates the extent of thisshared variance and provides correct standarderrors for testing the regression coefficientsrelating predictors to outcome scores. Wechose the multilevel modeling program HLM6(Raudenbush, Bryk, & Congdon, 2004) toestimate the parameters in our models. Weadapted the multivariate outcomes two-levelhierarchical linear model for change thatpermits modeling of separate equations forboth members of the dyad, as described byRaudenbush, Brennan, and Barnett (1995). Ourversion of the Level 1 model is parameterizedto include two time points for each member ofthe couple, and we interpret change as the dif-ference between the T1 and T2 score for eachmember.

This strategy has several advantages. First, itadjusts the outcomes for measurement error,which would otherwise have the negative effectof attenuating correlations between variables.Second, it estimates the shared variance arisingfrom the dependence of the outcome scoresbetween members of the couple. Third, itprovides separate equations for each memberof the couple, allowing the magnitude anddirection of the coefficients to vary acrosscouples.

Although we have only 29 couples, we haveresponses from 58 women, at two time points.The repeated measures design gives us greaterpower to detect effects. As we had only twoscores for each member of the couple, we didnot have enough information to estimate allthe Level 1 quantities (intercept, slope, mea-

surement error). To save a degree of freedomfor testing the model, we weighted the out-come scores by their reliability. This precisionweighting technique, described by Sayer andKlute (2004), is comparable to supplyinga known estimate of measurement error vari-ance to the HLM program rather than havingthis quantity estimated from the data. Weightswere created as the inverse of the measure-ment error variance and were included in allanalyses.

Level 1 model. We used the love and conflictsubscales, as evaluated by each partner, as indi-cators of relationship quality. For each couple,each partner had a score on relationship quality,measured at two times: 1 month before the bio-logical mother’s due date, and 3 months post-birth. The interval between T1 and T2 is 4months. Thus, our change score is simply thedifference between T1 and T2. The Level 1model is:

Y ¼ ½B1 Bio1B2 BioTime�1 ½B3 Nonbio1B4 NonbioTime�1 r ð1Þ

To facilitate estimating these differencescores, we coded time �.5 for T1 and 1.5 forT2. This coding allows us to interpret the modelcoefficients as follows: the intercepts B1 (forbiological mothers) and B3 (for nonbiologicalmothers) are the predicted outcome scores whenT ¼ 0. This point is halfway between T1 andT2 or 1 month postbirth. The slopes (B2 andB4) represent the difference or change in rela-tionship quality for a one-unit change in time (i.e.,the 4-month interval). The r in the Level 1model represents the residual or measurementerror. Thus, the intercepts B1 and B3 reflect thelevel of relationship quality adjusted for mea-surement error. For each person, we estimatea true level (l month postbirth) score and a truedifference score.

Level 2 model. Each coefficient in the Level1 equation becomes an outcome at Level 2,to be predicted by a set of Level 2 predictors.

Biological Mother :

B1 ¼ c10 1 ½predictors�1 u1 ð2Þ

B2 ¼ c20 1 ½predictors�1 u2 ð3Þ


Nonbiological Mother :

B3 ¼ c30 1 ½predictors�1 u3 ð4ÞB4 ¼ c40 1 ½predictors�1 u4 ð5Þ

In Equations 2 and 3, c10 is the average 1-month postbirth score and c20 is the average dif-ference score for love for the biological mother.In Equations 4 and 5, c30 and c40 represent thesame entities for the nonbiological mother. AtLevel 2, each set of true scores associated witha couple is treated as varying randomly over thepopulation of couples; that is, they can take ondifferent values across couples. The u’s are theLevel 2 random effects, and their variance rep-resents the heterogeneity of individual scoresaround the average. We estimate the variance ofthe u’s and their covariance; this latter estimatecaptures the shared variance in couple scores.

Taxonomy of Models

To answer our research questions, we compareda series of models. For each model, our strategywas to compare the model deviance statistic orgoodness of fit against the deviance of a com-peting model. The difference in deviances isdistributed as a chi-square statistic (�v2

). Thisallows us to use a likelihood ratio test to makedecisions about the best fitting model. If the testreveals that the difference in deviances is non-significant, we retain the more parsimoniousmodel.

For each outcome, we fit a baseline model(Model 1) without any Level 2 predictors. Thisstrategy allowed us to estimate the averagechange trajectory (defined by the two parame-ters, the intercept and slope) as well as hetero-geneity across couples around that averagetrajectory. Second, we fit a model (Model 2)that adds neuroticism (personality) to determinewhether it explains the differences in trajecto-ries across couples. If the latter model was a bet-ter fit, we retained neuroticism in all futuremodels. Next, the results of the model includingwork characteristics (Model 3) was compared tothe model based on personality alone to deter-mine whether aspects of work affect relation-ship trajectories controlling for the effect ofpersonality. Next, we fit a model (Model 4)based on nonwork (social support) characteris-tics to determine whether aspects of expectedsocial support affect relationship change con-trolling for the effect of personality. Finally,

the model (Model 5) based on couple character-istics was compared to the baseline modelto determine whether these variables accountfor change in lesbians’ romantic relationshipsacross the transition.

RESULTS

Descriptive Characteristics of the Sample

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations,and t tests for all variables displayed for bio-logical and nonbiological mothers. Inspectionof the table entries reveals few differencesby role status. Birth mothers reported higherlevels of neuroticism and were working fewerhours.

Model Comparisons

Model comparisons predicting love. The base-line model predicts biological mothers’ andnonbiological mothers’ love scores with sepa-rate biological mother and nonbiological motherintercepts and slopes. Tests of the variance com-ponents revealed significant variability in bothintercepts and slopes for both biological andnonbiological mothers.

The model with personality (Model 2) was abetter predictive model than the baseline. Wechose to use Model 2 as the reference model forfurther comparison. For the next comparison(Model 2 vs. Model 3), we included work char-acteristics. The model comparison test allowedus to retain the more parsimonious personalitymodel. For the next comparison (Model 2 vs.Model 4), the set of social context predictorswas added to the model with personality. Again,the model comparison test allowed us to retainthe more parsimonious personality model. Forthe final comparison (Model 2 vs. Model 5),couple characteristics were added to the modelwith personality and tested against the modelwith personality alone. Model 5 was a signifi-cantly better model and was retained for inter-pretation (�v2 ¼ 16.5, df ¼ 8, p ¼ .009).

Model comparisons predicting conflict. Thebaseline model revealed significant variabilityin slope for nonbiological mothers only. We fol-lowed a similar model-fitting and comparisonstrategy, with the following results: (a) themodel with personality was a better predictor


than the baseline model, (b) adding work pre-dictors did not improve the model fit (Model 2vs. Model 3), (c) adding social context predic-tors did improve the model fit at the p ¼ .10level of confidence (Model 2 vs. Model 4:�v2 ¼ 12.58, df ¼ 8, p ¼ .09), and (d) addingcouple characteristics did not improve the fit(Model 2 vs. Model 5). Thus, Model 4 was re-tained as the most parsimonious and best fittingmodel.

Table 2 presents the parameter estimates anddeviance statistics for the best fitting models(Model 5 when love is the dependent variable,Model 4 when conflict is the outcome). Theother models are available upon request. InTable 2, ‘‘Level’’ refers to the score 1 monthpostbirth, or midway across the transition, and‘‘Rate’’ refers to the difference score betweenT1 and T2.

Neuroticism remains a strong predictor oflevel of love for biological mothers, and a strongpredictor of rate of love for both biological andnonbiological mothers, irrespective of whatother variables are in the model. We confirmedour hypothesis that neuroticism was negativelyrelated to level and rate of love. Biologicalmothers who score high on neuroticism reportless love 1 month postbirth and both biologicaland nonbiological mothers who score high onneuroticism experience more decline in loveduring the 4-month transition to parenthood.

Inspection of estimates for Model 5 revealsthat couple characteristics are related to changein love for biological mothers, and to the 1-month postbirth love score for nonbiologicalmothers. High levels of maintenance behaviorsare associated with greater declines in love forbiological mothers. For nonbiological mothers,higher levels of maintenance behaviors andfeeling satisfied with the division of labor arerelated to higher levels of love 1 month post-birth.

We interpret our results on love through thecomparison of fitted trajectories (latent differ-ence scores) for prototypical women at sub-stantively interesting values of the predictors.These are graphs of the dependent variableagainst time, plotted to display statisticallyimportant effects on change. In this case, wechose to plot at low (25th) and high (75th) per-centile values of the neuroticism and mainte-nance distributions to reflect the range ofeffects of these predictors on change in love.Figure 1 presents these prototypical trajectories,

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for biological mothers (Panel A) and non-biological mothers (Panel B). The effect ofneuroticism on level is revealed by comparingthe displacement in elevation of the trajectoriesat Time 0, holding maintenance constant. Theeffect of maintenance on rate is indicated by thedifference in the tilt of the slopes representinghigh and low maintenance, holding neuroticismconstant. Biological mothers who reported lowlevels of neuroticism, as well as low levels ofmaintenance, experienced almost no change inlove. Women with high levels of neuroticismand high levels of maintenance reported themost significant decreases in love across thetransition.

With regard to conflict, inspection of theentries in Table 2 reveals that neuroticism af-fects level of conflict for both biological andnonbiological mothers but is not a consistentpredictor of rate of change in conflict. Recallthat level represents the score 1 month post-birth. Thus, our hypothesis that women whowere more neurotic would report higher levelsof conflict midway through the transition wassupported.

Inspection of estimates for Model 4 revealsthat support from family is related to level ofconflict for biological mothers and rate ofchange in conflict for nonbiological mothers.For birth mothers, expecting a high level of sup-

port from one’s partner’s family is related toless conflict 1 month postbirth. Contrary to ourhypothesis, nonbiological mothers who ex-pected a high level of support from their part-ner’s family prior to the birth experiencedsteeper increases in conflict.

Figure 2 presents prototypical conflict trajec-tories for both biological and nonbiologicalmothers. We chose to plot at low (25th) andhigh (75th) percentile values of neuroticism andexpected support from partner’s family to illus-trate the range of their effects on change in con-flict. As Panel B shows, nonbiological motherswho expected low levels of support experiencedlittle change in conflict, whereas those who re-ported high levels of neuroticism and expectedhigh levels of support experienced marked in-creases in conflict.

Sensitivity Analyses

Sensitivity analyses revealed two extreme out-liers on the love scale, both nonbiologicalmothers. We removed the outliers and reesti-mated all models on the smaller sample. Modelcomparisons revealed that in general the pat-terning, direction, and significance of the re-gression coefficients remained the same, butthere was no longer significant heterogeneity innonbiological mothers’ rates of change. Our

FIGURE 1. FITTED TRAJECTORIES OF CHANGE IN LOVE OVER 4 MONTHS, DISPLAYED AS A FUNCTION

OF NEUROTICISM AND MAINTENANCE

-0.5 0 0.5

7.2

7.4

7.6

7.8

8.0

8.2

8.4

A B

4-month transition

LO

VE

Biological Mothers

Lo NEUR, Lo MAINTLo NEUR, Hi MAINTHi NEUR, Lo MAINTHi NEUR, Hi MAINT

-0.5 0 0.5

7.2

7.4

7.6

7.8

8.0

8.2

8.4

4-month transition

LO

VE

Lo NEUR, Lo MAINTLo NEUR, Hi MAINTHi NEUR, Lo MAINTHi NEUR, Hi MAINT

Nonbiological mothers


prediction of these rates may not be robust andrequires replication.

DISCUSSION

The goal of the current study was to examinewhether contextual influences such as workcharacteristics and expected social support, aswell as couple characteristics, influence lesbians’relationship quality during the transition to par-enthood above and beyond the effects of per-sonal characteristics.

Results reveal that on average, lesbians’ lovedecreased across the transition, whereas conflictincreased. These data are consistent with re-search on heterosexual couples (Belsky et al.,1983). Less time alone as a couple and thestress induced by widening one’s repertoire ofroles to include that of parent are potential ex-planations for these changes. We also examinedvariability within these couples, that is, whatfactors help to differentiate those whose rela-tionships suffered from those whose relation-ships fared better?

Personal Characteristics

With regard to love, birth mothers whose per-sonality styles were characterized by greaterneuroticism reported lower postbirth levels of

love, and both biological mothers and nonbio-logical mothers who scored high on neuroticismreported more postbirth conflict. This is consis-tent with research that has found neuroticismand relationship satisfaction to be inverselyrelated (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). With re-gard to change, greater neuroticism was relatedto steeper declines in love for all women butwas not a predictor of change in conflict. Thissuggests that, in the context of a demanding lifechange such as becoming a parent, a neuroticpersonality style may affect one’s relationshipmore through perceptions, attributions, and feel-ings (e.g., decreased satisfaction with and lovefor one’s partner), and less through behavior(e.g., fighting more).

Influence of the Work Context

Contrary to our hypothesis, aspects of workwere not significantly related to love or conflict.This is inconsistent with research that has foundan inverse relationship between hours workedand marital quality (Doumas et al., 2003), andresearch that linked workplace support to lowerwork-family conflict (Moen & Yu, 2000). Themajority of the women in the current sample,however, were employed in middle-class occu-pations. It is possible that among lesbians em-ployed in lower status occupations (e.g., jobs

FIGURE 2. FITTED TRAJECTORIES OF CHANGE IN CONFLICT OVER 4 MONTHS, DISPLAYED AS A

FUNCTION OF NEUROTICISM AND SATISFACTION

A B

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

CO

NF

LIC

T

Biological Mothers

-0.5 0 0.54-month transition

Lo NEUR, Lo SupportLo NEUR, Hi SupportHi NEUR, Lo SupportHI NEUR, Hi Support

Lo NEUR, Lo SupportLo NEUR, Hi SupportHi NEUR, Lo SupportHi NEUR, Hi Support

-0.503.38

3.62

3.85

4.09

4.32

4-month transition

CO

NF

LIC

T

Nonbiological Mothers

-0.25 -0.00 0.24 0.49


characterized by less autonomy and flexibility),aspects of work might have more powerful ef-fects. Working-class heterosexual couples oftenwork alternating shifts as a child-care strategy,meaning less time together, and potentiallycompromised relationship quality (Perry-Jenkins, Goldberg, & Pierce, 2005); the samemay be true for working-class lesbians. Also,given that birth mothers’ work hours tended tochange across the transition (some returned fulltime, some returned part time, and a few stayedhome), prebirth work hours may not be a mean-ingful predictor for birth mothers. Postbirthwork arrangements may have greater implica-tions for relationship stability. It is also possi-ble that work affects other outcomes such asindividual well-being but has less influence onrelationship quality. Longitudinal investi-gation of work effects is necessary to explorethis question. In addition, researchers shouldevaluate the effect of family-friendly workplacepolicies, such as domestic partnership ben-efits, on lesbians’ well-being and relationshipquality.

Influence of the Social Context

Expected social support did not have a signifi-cant effect on love. With regard to conflict, themodel with expected social support and person-ality was a better fit to the data than the modelwith personality alone. For biological mothers,high levels of expected support from one’s part-ner’s family were associated with lower averagelevels of conflict. As Figure 2 shows, nonbio-logical mothers who expected high levels ofsupport from their partner’s families reportedincreases in conflict. What might explain this?Nonbiological mothers who expected their part-ner’s families to be very supportive tended toreport increased conflict, perhaps as a result offrustrated expectations. Biological mothers’ fam-ilies may undermine the nonbiological mother’srelationship to the child, seeing them as ‘‘less ofa mother’’; thus, nonsupport from one’s part-ner’s family may be particularly salient for non-biological mothers, and family membership maybecome an issue of tense discussion betweenpartners. Another possibility is that biologicalmothers’ families do in fact meet or evensurpass nonbiological mothers’ expectations forsupport, but their frequent presence or greaterinvolvement ultimately causes conflict betweenthe partners.

Influence of Couple Characteristics

Characteristics of the couple were associatedwith love for lesbian mothers. For nonbiologicalmothers, engaging in higher levels of mainte-nance behaviors prior to the birth was associ-ated with higher levels of love at the midpointof the transition. Failure to perform relationshipmaintenance may not be associated with in-creased conflict, but on a more subtle level, itmay reflect or be related to one’s feelings oflove toward one’s partner, at least among nonbi-ological mothers. Interestingly, prebirth levelsof maintenance had the opposite effect onchange in love, for birth mothers. As displayedin Figure 1, the birth mothers whose feelings oflove declined most drastically were those whoscored highest on neuroticism and maintenancebehaviors at T1. Women who scored low onneuroticism and reported low levels of mainte-nance at T1 experienced no change in love.What might account for this? Post hoc analy-ses reveal that maintenance behaviors declineacross the transition. It is possible that amongsome women—that is, women with a neuroticpersonality style who are actively experiencingthe transition of giving birth and welcoming achild into their lives—a decrease in talkingabout the relationship, or a decrease in carry-ing out activities to enhance the relationship, isparticularly disruptive.

Among nonbiological mothers, those whowere more satisfied with the division of laborreported higher levels of love for their partner.This mirrors the results of research by Chanet al. (1998), who found that satisfaction withthe division of labor was related to relationshipsatisfaction for nonbiological but not biologicalmothers. Why were these effects present fornonbiological mothers only? Qualitative dataindicate that at the prebirth interview, a numberof nonbiological mothers reported a recent in-crease in their responsibility for houseworkbecause their pregnant partners were less able toperform household chores. Many nonbiologicalmothers take on added responsibilities duringthe transition without the rewards of visibility(and corresponding sympathy) that their preg-nant partners receive. Given that their partnerswere doing the work of carrying their child, it isunderstandable why these women’s discontentand frustration with the status quo might notmanifest in overt conflict but, rather, affect theirfeelings of closeness to their partners.


Conclusions, Limitations, andFuture Directions

This study represents the first prospective,short-term longitudinal investigation of lesbiancouples’ relationship quality across the transi-tion to parenthood. It is also the first longitudi-nal study of the effects of the work context onlesbians’ relationships, and it makes a methodo-logical contribution; to our knowledge, it is thefirst study to investigate within-dyad differencescores using a multilevel model.

The current study has a number of limita-tions. First, it is a small sample with 29 couples;thus, all quantitative analyses should be viewedwith caution, and replication of the current studydesign is imperative. Second, couples were in-terviewed only twice, within a short time span.The findings observed here could representacute phenomena that would dissipate over alonger time span. Third, it is possible that thevolunteer sample of lesbian couples recruitedfor this study may have resulted in a bias towardfamilies without problems. Fourth, this is ahighly educated, professional sample, and mostlyWhite, a limitation of most studies of lesbiancouples (Patterson, 1992). It does not capturethe class, occupational, racial, and ethnic diver-sity of the lesbian community (Simmons &O’Connell, 2003).

Why was the current project unsuccessful inobtaining a more diverse sample? It may be thattoo few sources of recruitment were used. Thereis some evidence that multiple sources of re-cruitment enhance the likelihood of obtaining adiverse sample of lesbians (Rothblum, Factor, &Aaron, 2002). It is also possible that amonglesbians, socioeconomic status tends to be con-flated with method of becoming a parent.Lesbians who are more affluent tend to chooseinsemination and international adoption, whereaslesbians with fewer resources tend to opt fordomestic adoption (which typically means olderchildren, often with siblings, and often withemotional/behavioral problems). This study ex-cluded lesbians adopting older children, and thusmay have inadvertently focused on couples whowere more advantaged. Future studies shouldsolicit participation from lesbians who are adopt-ing domestically in order to tease apart theseissues.

These women’s middle-class status can beviewed as a protective factor. Although they livein a heterosexist society, their social class may

enable them to ‘‘buy’’ a more supportive nichethan less affluent lesbians. Middle-class lesbiansmay also have more freedom in terms of divid-ing labor equally, thus avoiding potential con-flicts. Middle-class occupations tend to offermore fair leave policies (at least for birth moth-ers), which may facilitate an easier transition toparenthood. Finally, if less advantaged lesbiansdo tend to use domestic adoption, they are morelikely to have children with special needs, com-plicating their transition. Future research withmore diverse samples can help to determinehow and to what extent social class shapes les-bians’ transition to parenthood.

Studies with larger samples and longerfollow-up can help to determine whether certaineffects are acute or have lasting implications. Inaddition, racial, class, and economic diversityexists within this group, and it is a role forfuture research to determine how to best captureit. Finally, the transition to parenthood for les-bian and gay couples who are adopting, and forlesbian and gay single parents, represents unex-plored areas of research. Future research shouldinclude these groups in order to contribute toa slowly growing literature on gay and lesbiancouples and families.

NOTE

This research was conducted under the Roy Scrivner Disser-tation Award Grant (2002), awarded to the first authorby the American Psychological Foundation, and the JessieBernard Award (2002), awarded to the first author by theNational Council on Family Relations.

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