Psychosocial predictors of marital satisfaction among married people in Gauteng Province, South Africa

Abstract

This study investigated whether (1) socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, race, number of years in marriage, number of children, frequency of marriage, and educational level, (2)psychological well-being, and(3) communication will significantly predict marital satisfaction among married people in Gauteng Province and ( 4) whether married people with alexithymia do have satisfactory marriages?.Data was collected on married participants who were randomly selected in Gauteng Province. The sample comprised both males 313 (63.1 %) and females 183 (36.9%), participants were above the consenting age of 18years, with age ranging between 20 to 72 years.The results indicate that communication, alexithymia, and psychological well-being do predict marital satisfaction significantly. A positive correlation was found between dyadic adjustment and psychological well-being, also between communication and alexithymia.Three hypotheses were accepted, except for the one of demographic factors which was partially accepted since not all of them were found to predict marital satisfaction, except age and sex.