Solidarity in Couple Relationships – A Mixed Methods Approach

In family research, there have not yet been many attempts to grasp theoretically and empirically solidarity in couple relationships, a gap that this study addresses combining qualitative and quantitative strategies. One purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework to understand solidarity as an overarching structural element of cooperation in couples. We then propose, in the best possible way, a measurement of solidarity to be used in quantitative analysis. To this end, data from the German Family Panel (pairfam, waves 2008–2017) are used in a longitudinal design. We offer an empirical test of our measurement by employing autoregressive cross-lagged analyses with random intercepts (n = 2,588 couples) and establish the cause-and-effect relationship between solidarity and one important dimension of relationship quality, i. e. relationship satisfaction. The results of this analysis lend support to our assumption that couples cooperate on a basic rule of solidarity, having a unidirectional influence on relationship quality.