A House Divided: Interpolitical Couples Across Adulthood and Their Co-Change in Political Orientations

TL;DR

This study explores how political differences between romantic partners change over decades, finding that partners tend to move toward each other's political views over time.

Contribution

The study introduces a lifespan and dyadic framework to examine long-term political convergence in couples.

Findings

Partners in politically mixed couples tend to converge in political orientation over time.

Less extreme political positions in partners lead to quicker convergence.

Political changes in one partner correlate with changes in the other.

Abstract

Many studies demonstrate assortative mating in political orientation in romantic relationships, but the long-term relationship dynamics of politically heterogeneous couples remain underexplored. To better understand how partners with different political standings change over time, we examined interpolitical couple members’ political orientation trajectories and their co-change over 14 to 24 years using three large panel data from the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany (Ninterpolitical couples = 3,980; age range 14-93). Growth curve models showed that the dissimilarity between partners decreased over time. Specifically, the relatively left-wing individuals within each couple generally moved right, whereas the relatively right-wing partners moved left (i.e., a convergence effect). Moreover, the less politically extreme their partners started off, the quicker the individuals converged. Lastly, partners’ rates of change correlated with each other—if one partner changed over time, so did the other. These findings highlight the dynamic nature of political development in adulthood and later life, shedding light on the role of the partner’s political dissimilarity in shaping individuals’ political orientations over time. By placing political attitude change within a lifespan and dyadic framework, this study adds to a larger knowledge of socio-political development in aging populations.