ABSTRACT

The purposes of this study were to find the general trends ofelderly couples' marital conflict and to analyze the effects ofsignificant variables influencing on their marital conflict. Theparticipants were the 218 couples over 60 years old living inKwangju area. The marital conflict scores of both husbands andwives were lower than median, but wives' scores were higherthan husbands' scores. Husbands' marital conflict was influencedby marital intimacy, IADL, communication efficacy, locus ofcontrol, education level, and was explained about 30% by thesevariables, while wives' conflict was influenced by communicationefficacy, IADL, locus of control, and was explained about 29% bythese variables. Communication efficacy was the most importantvariables in old aged couples' marital conflict, and thus family lifeeducation for increasing the communication efficacy was proposed.