Gender Differential in Marital Satisfaction among Married University Staff

Abstract

One key indicator of a relationship's success is marital satisfaction, which assesses the extent to which individuals find their marriage rewarding or fulfilling in light of expected goals, and how well their rewards in the relationship outweigh the costs. A key indicator of marital success is marital satisfaction. Therefore, this study examined gender differences in marital satisfaction among married staff in a Nigerian higher-education setting. The study adopted a survey design. A stratified random sampling was used to select participants across various units and job types (academic and non-academic) at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB). Data were collected using the 48-item Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS). Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and an independent t-test. The results showed that the majority of the respondents were male (59.5%), though a fair percentage were female (40.5%), indicating substantial gender diversity. The findings also revealed moderate level of marital satisfaction (M = 148.16; 61.73%) while no statistically significant difference was found in marital satisfaction between male (M = 148.6) and female (Mean = 147.6) married staff in FUNAAB (t = .837, df = 318.18, p> .05). The study concluded that marital satisfaction, as experienced, is not based on being male or female, but rather in relatively similar ways across genders among university staff. Therefore, it was recommended that proactive marital counselling interventions should be available and applicable generally, and not necessarily gender-specific.