Interpersonal Discrimination and Relationship Quality among Married Mid-Life and Older Black Adults

Abstract

Theories of minority stress contagion suggest that the consequences of racial discrimination may extend beyond the individual to impact close others. We empirically test direct and spillover associations between racialized stress and marital support and strain among mid-life and older Black spouses. We use actor-partner interdependence models to analyze dyadic data from 280 different-sex, married Black couples from the 2014 and 2016 Health and Retirement Study who completed the psychosocial leave-behind module. We find significant actor effects for husbands’ racial discrimination on their own marital support and strain, while wives’ racial discrimination is positively associated with their own marital strain. We find no evidence of partner effects nor significant gender differences in the association between racial discrimination and marital quality. The findings highlight pathways by which racial discrimination affects the marriage quality of Black men and women in mid- to late-life.