Marital Satisfaction among the Working Population in Malaysia During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus outbreak since 2019 has brought significant changes to social norms, mental health and lifestyles of people across the globe including Malaysia. Working from home during the outbreak was seen to escalate work-family conflict among married, working couples, affecting their psychological well-being and impacting marital relationships. The current cross-sectional study aims to investigate the level of marital satisfaction among married, working couples in Malaysia during the pandemic, and its association with socio-demographic variables and perceived stress levels. Using a purposive sampling method, 361 participants were recruited and data collection was performed using a questionnaire on socio-demographic data, Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI-16) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). Data was analyzed and hypotheses were tested for the non-normal distribution using the two-tailed t test, Chi-square Test of Independence, and Spearman’s rank correlation test. Interestingly, the results revealed high levels of marital satisfaction (median=70.00, IQR=11) among the participants during the pandemic, but no significant mean difference was found for marital satisfaction of females (M= 68.62) and males (M= 69.27) (p> 0.05). Also, marital satisfaction was found positively associated with type of employment (χ2= 100.777, p< 0.01), age (χ2= 170.164, p< 0.001), duration of marriage (χ2= 175.343, p< 0.001), and number of children (χ2= 264.780, p< 0.01). On the other hand, marital satisfaction was found with significant negative correlation to perceived stress levels (rs= -.279, p< 0.001). Therefore, this study reports high scores on marital satisfaction among married, working couples in Malaysia during the pandemic, which can be influenced by type of employment, age, duration of marriage, number of children in the household, as well as perceived stress levels.