Work, Romantic Relationships and Life Satisfaction in Argentinean Emerging Adults

Abstract

Few studies have jointly examined the development of love and work in emerging adulthood and even less so in the majority world. This article provides data about how love and work are related within each domain, across domains, and to life satisfaction in emerging adults from an understudied ecology, Argentina. For this purpose, 272 randomly selected Argentineans reported on romantic relationships, work satisfaction, and life satisfaction at age 23 and 27. On both occasions, satisfaction in the romantic domain was a better predictor of concurrent life satisfaction than work. At age 23, love but not work added modestly to the prediction of life satisfaction 4 years later. A much stronger stability was found in love than in work domain. Consistent with the segmentation model, but not with the spillover model, no cross-domain associations were detected over time. Results are discussed in light of important features of the Argentinean macrosystem.