Happily Ever After? Religion, Marital Status, Gender, and Relationship Quality in Urban Families

Research indicates that religious participation is correlated with marital satisfaction. Less is known about whether religion also benefits participants in nonmarital, intimate relationships, or whether religious effects on relationships vary by gender. Using data from the first three waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we find that religious participation by fathers, irrespective of marital status, is consistently associated with high quality relationships among new parents in urban America; however, maternal attendance is not associated with better relationship quality. Our results suggest that religious effects on relationships vary more by gender than they do by marital status. We conclude that men’s investments in relationships depend more on the institutional contexts of those relationships, such as participation in formal religion, than do women’s investments.