“But in most couples, men contribute more of the income, and this aligns with the fact that Americans place a higher value on a man’s role as financial provider,” the authors said.Īttitudes appear to be changing at a slower rate than women’s salaries. Women bring at least half or more of the earnings in almost one-third of cohabiting couples in the U.S., up from just 13% in 1981. Another theory: A persistent glass ceiling for women at work may encourage men to believe they should also be the highest earners at home.Īmericans see men as the financial providers, even as women’s contributions grow, a separate report published in 2017 by the Pew Research Center found. “Expectations of wives’ homemaking may have eroded, but the husband/breadwinner norm persists.” That apparent disconnect may be due to peer pressure, or attitudes passed down from parents. “For marriages formed after 1975, husbands’ lack of full-time employment is associated with higher risk of divorce,” she found. In fact, the risk of divorce is nearly 33% higher when a husband isn’t working full-time, according to “Money, Work, and Marital Stability: Assessing Change in the Gendered Determinants of Divorce,” a 2016 study of more than 6,300 couples by Alexandra Killewald, professor of sociology at Harvard University. American men are still more comfortable in relationships when they are the breadwinners. ”Įven in 2019, old-fashioned views on marriage prevail. “Couples who put love ahead of money may be part of a new generation that is breaking from the status-conscious marriage habits of the past.
Other experts say couples are more likely to stay together, even if a wife earns more than her husband: Maybe they can’t afford to move out into separate places or, perhaps, one person is freelance and the other has a full-time job with health insurance. Some research suggests that couples are at higher risk of splitting up and less likely to marry when the male partner earns less than the female partner. Theories on what helps a couple stay together vary.
However, studies indicate that they’re pushing against larger social and cultural forces, which put a higher value on husbands who earn more than their wives. Men and women who put love ahead of money may be part of a new generation that is breaking away from old-fashioned tropes about who should be the breadwinner. The financial gender balance within marriage seems to be changing at a faster pace than society’s attitudes about successful women. When a wife makes more than her husband, the income the couple reports for the wife is 1.5 percentage points lower on average than her actual income, but 2.9 percentage points higher for her husband.
Census Bureau, that does make some couples uncomfortable. It’s increasingly common for wives to make more than their husbands: Approximately 38% of wives earn more than their husbands, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Complementary work hours and two higher-earning spouses may help couples juggle parental responsibilities, but will a husband feel emasculated at home if his wife climbs up the corporate ladder at work, and earns more than he does? He only felt they could get back on an equal footing when he earned as much, if not more, than his wife. His wife did most of the planning and had the last word on managing their lives, Peters said. “Some academic research suggests that heterosexual couples are more likely to split up and less likely to marry when the husband earns less.