ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors review the recent research on the effects of becoming a parent on marriage, organizing their review around risk and protective factors for new parents. The authors then consider research design and other methodological issues that may continue to enhance future work in this area. For example, multiple person-centered approaches allow researchers to model the diversity of individuals’ and couples’ experiences. In this chapter, the authors further emphasize distinctions between event-focused and interval-focused designs, the importance of temporal design (e.g., frequency and spacing of assessments), and the value of carefully considering the researcher’s assumptions about the nature of change processes (e.g., whether “macro” or “micromediational”) that impact how researchers understand the effects of becoming a parent on one’s day-to-day life and relationships.
