Investigation of Factors Affecting on Married Lifestyle in Tehran City

Correlation between shared activities with spouse and stability of marriage has been confirmed in several previous studies.The purpose of this article is to determine determinants of shared activities with spouse in different dimentions as married lifestyle.  A sample of 1736 married men and women  was collected using a cross sectional survey  Multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to collect the data and due to the different economic and social classes of people, 50 geographical regions in Tehran were selected. The instrument was questionnaire and data was analysed using  explanatory factor analysis and multivariate regression. In explanatory factor analysis, five dimentions for shared activities were exracted and the impact of social and economic characteristics, factors related to the life cycle, gender attitudes, marital variables and work-family conflict on these dimensions were examined. The results showed shared activity with spouse was greater among  men, educated people, people with egalitarian gender attitudes, and people with more homogeneity wih spouse. The importance of  homogeneity wih spouse and gender attitudes was  greatest while the role of  factors related to the life cycle was the least. Income, income difference, work-family conflict, and marital duration had a dual role in different dimentions of married lifestyle. This model had the greatest explanatory power in social contact (29.5 percent) and the lowest explanatory power in spending money (10.3 percent). Shared activities with spouse were not the same in different dimentions. Determinants and severity of effects were also different. The results confirms the theories  of  exchange, cultural capital and new home economic.