We must pay attention to senescent marriage because it is very important in terms of psychological and emotional stability of the elderly. The reason why the elderly depend on their spouses than anyone else is to satisfy their emotional desires like l...
We must pay attention to senescent marriage because it is very important in terms of psychological and emotional stability of the elderly. The reason why the elderly depend on their spouses than anyone else is to satisfy their emotional desires like love or the meaning of life. The harmonious conjugal adaption can be a major factor that gives them individual satisfaction or ego-integrity in the last step of their life. And the quality of senescent conjugal relations will determine the satisfaction of senescent life as the continued extension of senescence.
Under the perception of senescent conjugal problems in such modern society, this study is aimed at improving the marital satisfaction of elderly couples by verifying the dynamic interrelationship between senescent conjugal relation factors.
For this, it was designed to examine the mediating effect of sexual satisfaction in the relationship between sex-role attitude, conjugal communication and marital satisfaction of elderly couples?the namely, come up with measures of social welfare practice that can improve senescent conjugal relations by inquiring into the empirical relationship between direct and indirect effects of conjugal sex-role attitude, communication and sexual satisfaction on marital satisfaction of elderly couples.
The results of this study are summarized as follows.
First, a difference analysis of the effects on sex-role attitude, communication and sexual satisfaction according to individual characteristics of the elderly was carried out, summarizing detailed results as follows. A mean difference test according to sex for a hypothesis 1-1 -- Is there a difference in sex-role attitude by individual characteristics? -- showed that there is a significant difference, which women have a higher perception of the sex-capacity and -role difference than men.
Meanwhile, the preception of the elderly for sex-role attitude showed that for general sex-role attitudes, the perception of the elderly under the age of 64 is the highest, followed by the age of 65-69, and over the age of 70, which the high age decreases the understanding of sex-role attitude. The satisfaction of the elderly under 2 survival children was the highest, followed by 3-4 survival children, and over 5 survival children, which the low survival children increased the satisfaction of sex-role attitude.
The satisfaction of the elderly more 3 cohabiting families was the highest, followed by 2 cohabiting families, and 1 cohabiting family, which the many cohabiting families increased the satisfaction of general sex-role attitude, and the long marriage period decreased the general sex-role attitude and sex-capacity perception.
The high academic background increased the sex-role attitude of the elderly, and the sex-role attitude of the elderly who have a job were higher than that of the elderly who have no job.
Second, a mean difference test according to the sleeping in separate bedrooms for a hypothesis 1-2 -- Is there a difference in communication by individual characteristics? -- showed that for all groups such as general communication, the elderly of close relationship, the elderly of passive relationship and the elderly of exclusive relationship, communication in the elderly who don't sleep in separate bedrooms is more active than in the elderly who do sleep in separate bedrooms. For academic background, communication of the elderly more than high school graduate was most active, followed by middle school graduate, and under elementary school graduate. For the elderly of close relationship, communication of the elderly under middle school graduate was most active, followed by more than high school graduate, and under elementary school graduate.
Third, a mean difference test according to age for a hypothesis 1-3 -- Is there a difference in sexual satisfaction by individual characteristics? -- showed that for the general sexual satisfaction, the satisfaction in the age of under 64 was the highest, followed by in the age of 65-69, and in the age of over 70. This phenomenon showed same results in all positive propensity, relationship retention propensity, passive propensity and dissatisfaction propensity groups, which the high age decreased the sexual satisfaction. And the satisfaction in the elderly of 1 cohabiting family was the highest, followed by in the elderly of more than 3 cohabiting families, and in the elderly of 2 cohabiting families, which living together with a great number of children could improve the sexual satisfaction of the elderly, and the healthy elderly could have a high sexual satisfaction.
Fourth, a mean difference test according to the sleeping in separate bedrooms for a hypothesis 2 -- Is there a difference in marital satisfaction by individual characteristics? -- showed that for the general marital satisfaction, the marital satisfaction in the elderly who don't sleep in separate bedrooms is higher than in the elderly who do sleep in separate bedrooms, which the healthy elderly and the elderly who have a job can have a high marital satisfaction. And the elderly of high academic background could have a high marital satisfaction.
Fifth, basic models were designed for hypothesis 3 test to use Chi-square, CFI, TLI and RMSEA for the evaluation of the their fitness, which the their fitness was good.
For the path of the relationship between sex-role attitude, communication and marital satisfaction of the elderly, and the relationship between each sub-factors, there was a significant difference between all factors and between each sub-factors(p<0.01, the sex-role attitude was p<0.05). The path coefficient test showed that a hypothesis 3 is supported.
These findings indicate that the sex-role attitude and communication of senescent marital life have a positive impact on the marital satisfaction of the elderly, confirming that it is important to perceive the male/female role and capacity caused by sex differences in their daily life for their happy marriage until senescence.
The additional hypothesis test using modified mediation models for a hypothesis 3 showed that the communication is significant in the path coefficient of the relationship between exogenous variables and endogenous variables in modified mediation models(p<0.05), while the sex-role attitude are not significant. A hypothesis 3-1 -- the marital satisfaction will depend on the sex-role attitude -- was rejected, and a hypothesis 3-2 -- the marital satisfaction will depend on the communication -- was supported. A hypothesis 3-3 -- the sexual satisfaction will affect the marital satisfaction -- was also supported.
Sixth, to verify the mediating effect of sexual satisfaction, the fundamental mediation models were come up with, and the modified mediation models, which are finally applied to this study using the modified exponential models, were designed by additionally putting the parameters, sexual satisfaction variables into basic models to build the models.
A comparative analysis of the fitness of modified mediation models and fundamental mediation models showed that the Chi-square value, significance probability, CFI, TLI and RMSEA are 195.251, 0.000, 0.836, 0.757 and 0.120, respectively, which the modified mediation models are generally fit. In other words, the fitness of modified mediation models was more improved than that of fundamental mediation models.
A hypothesis 4 predicted that the sexual satisfaction will play a mediating role in the effect of sex-role attitude and communication on marital satisfaction of the elderly. An analysis of the modified mediation models showed that the communication(0.724 and 0.482) is most important for the factors affecting the marital satisfaction, followed by the sexual satisfaction(0.355).
Analysis showed that the sex-role perception and conjugal communication of elderly couples have an impact on the marital satisfaction, and the sexual satisfaction plays a mediating role. And the communication had priority for the factors affecting the marital satisfaction, which a conjugal active conversation was a top priority for their happy marriage through good conjugal relations in the twilight years of their life.
Seventh, the effects such as the indirect, direct and total effects between variables showed that a dependent variable, marital satisfaction receives a direct effect of 0.891 from a parameter, sexual satisfaction, 0.143 from an independent variable, sex-role attitude and 0.05 from an independent variable, communication, and indirect effect of 0.019 from an independent variable, sex-role attitude and 0.737 from an independent variable, communication at the same time.
And a parameter, sexual satisfaction received a direct effect of 0.021 from an independent variable, sex-role attitude and 0.827 from an independent variable, communication.
Comparing the size of the total effect, the communication and sex-role attitude had an effect of 0.787 and 0.162 on the sexual satisfaction for the factors affecting a parameter, sexual satisfaction, respectively. And the communication of 0.787 had a bigger effect than the sex-role attitude of 0.162 for a dependent variable, marital satisfaction.
There are limitations caused by problems in the establishment of research objects and research tools in the processes of this study, which is aimed at improving the marital satisfaction of elderly couples by verifying the dynamic interrelationship between senescent conjugal relation factors.
First, in reference to sampling, there's a limit as to the generalization of findings for the total elderly of our country because this study was limited to Seoul area.
Second, there's a limit that controls and explains other variables affecting the sex-role attitude, communication, sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction of the elderly besides variables established in this study. The contamination effect by these variables could be produced because it was impossible to have a complete control due to the nature of a social survey; they were inquired into only in terms of individual characteristics.
In this study, the insignificant test values of some individual characteristics variables of sex-role attitude, communication, sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction characteristics may have an incomplete control of a survey.