Research on marital quality and child well-being is currently limited by its common use of geographically constrained, homogenous, and often cross-sectional (or at least temporally limited) samples. We build upon previous work showing multiple trajectories of marital quality and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (NLSY79) regarding mothers and their children (inclusive of ages 5–14). We examine how indicators of child well-being are linked to parental trajectories of marital quality (happiness, communication, and conflict). Results showed children whose parents had consistently poor marital quality over the life course exhibited more internalizing and externalizing problems, poorer health, lower quality home environments, and lower math and vocabulary scores than children of parents in consistently higher-quality marriages. Group differences remained stable over time for child health, home environment, and vocabulary scores. Group differences for internalizing problems declined over time, whereas group differences increased for externalizing problems and math scores. Initial advantages for females across nearly all indicators of child well-being tended to shrink over time, with boys often moving slightly ahead by mid adolescence. We discuss the implications of these findings in regard to children's development and well-being and suggest treating marriage as a monolithic construct betrays important variation within marriage itself.

目前，对婚姻质量和儿童福祉的研究受到其普遍使用受地域限制、同质且通常为横截面（或至少在时间上受限制）样本的限制。我们建立在之前的工作基础上，显示了婚姻质量的多个轨迹以及来自 1979 年全国青年纵向调查 (NLSY79) 关于母亲及其子女（包括 5-14 岁）的数据。我们研究了儿童幸福感的指标如何与父母的婚姻质量轨迹（幸福、沟通和冲突）相关联。结果显示，与婚姻质量持续较高的父母的孩子相比，父母在整个生命过程中婚姻质量持续较差的孩子表现出更多的内化和外化问题、更差的健康、较低质量的家庭环境以及较低的数学和词汇分数。随着时间的推移，儿童健康、家庭环境和词汇分数的群体差异保持稳定。内化问题的群体差异随着时间的推移而下降，而外化问题和数学成绩的群体差异增加。随着时间的推移，女性在几乎所有儿童福祉指标上的初始优势都趋于缩小，男孩通常在青春期中期略微领先。我们讨论了这些发现对儿童发展和幸福的影响，并建议将婚姻视为一个整体结构，这暴露了婚姻本身的重要变化。而外化问题和数学成绩的群体差异增加。随着时间的推移，女性在几乎所有儿童福祉指标上的初始优势都趋于缩小，男孩通常在青春期中期略微领先。我们讨论了这些发现对儿童发展和幸福的影响，并建议将婚姻视为一个整体结构，这暴露了婚姻本身的重要变化。而外化问题和数学成绩的群体差异增加。随着时间的推移，女性在几乎所有儿童福祉指标上的初始优势都趋于缩小，男孩通常在青春期中期略微领先。我们讨论了这些发现对儿童发展和幸福的影响，并建议将婚姻视为一个整体结构，这暴露了婚姻本身的重要变化。