Marital Conflict in Older Couples: Positivity, Personality, and Health.

We examine the implications of health and personality characteristics for late-life marital conflict, using data from the 2010-11 wave of the National Social Life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative study with data on both partners in 955 marital and cohabitational dyads. Using these data, we relate characteristics of husbands to characteristics of their wives, and vice versa. Wives with husbands in fair or poor physical health are more likely to report high levels of marital conflict, but the reverse is not true.