Till Porn Do Us Part? Longitudinal Effects of Pornography Use on Marriage Outcomes

• In Event: 381 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Marriage

Abstract

Studies have consistently identified a connection between pornography use and lower marital quality and stability. A significant limitation of previous research, however, is that the vast majority of earlier studies draw on cross-sectional data and/or data from non-representative samples of individuals or couples. Consequently, it is still unclear whether pornography use itself leads to lower marital quality and stability, and under what social conditions. We draw on three waves of the General Social Survey panel data (2006-2014) and employ entropy balancing—a novel technique to isolate treatment effects—with logistic regression models to determine how respondents’ introduction or cessation of porn use effects their likelihood of divorce and marital happiness over time. We find that beginning porn use between survey waves increases the probability of divorce for both men and women at time 2. Conversely, discontinuing porn use between survey waves reduces the probability of divorce for women, but not men. Additional analyses also show that the effect of porn use on probability of divorce is particularly strong among younger Americans and those who are less religious. The latter pattern is reversed regarding marital happiness, however. Porn use predicts lower marital happiness among the highly religious, but not the less religious. On the whole, results affirm that viewing pornography can have negative effects on marriage over time, but that these effects are contingent on social and ideological factors.

Authors

• Samuel L. Perry, University of Oklahoma

• Cyrus J. Schleifer, University of Oklahoma