The Utility of Family Life Cycle as a Theoretical and Empirical Tool Commitment and Family Life-Cycle Stage

Using data from a 1980 national sample of married men and women, the authors’ empirical analysis examines the utility of the family life cycle concept, employing as dependent variables constructs from Johnson’s conceptualization of commitment. They argue, in disagreement with two classic critiques of the family life cycle concept, that the predictive power of family life cycle is, for many dependent variables, quite independent of age or length of marriage. Their analyses demonstrate that, when using dependent variables one would expect to be related to the presence and ages of children, family life cycle remains a useful predictive tool.