tIn the last blog I reported on studies showing what most of know – women are contributing more to household finances than in the past, but the number of female breadwinners is still significantly lower than the number of male breadwinners.
There also seems to something very dramatic that happens right at the 50/50 mark. It’s like women contribute more until they make the same amount of money as their husbands, and then something causes them to back off. Few earn more than their husbands.
Why is that? From my experience, many of us choose to focus more on our families than our work. However, some of the reports also included cohabitating couples and couples without children, and this “cliff” occurred there, too.
Numerous reports I read inferred this was caused by the “female breadwinner penalty.”
No, I am not making this up.
Traditionally, men have been the primary breadwinners, but females have always been willing to kick in when it was best for the family. Rosie the Riveter may come to mind, representing women who filled jobs while their men served in the armed forces. Or think of wives who carry the load when their husbands become disabled. Other women pursue high income careers and knowingly marry men who have careers in less lucrative fields. Nonetheless, multiple reports hypothesized about this “female breadwinner penalty.”
The most commonly reported penalty related to dissatisfaction and marriage breakups.
Studies show that people in female breadwinner marriages tend to be less satisfied with life. Studies in the United States and Europe show statistically less happiness and more discontent in marriages where the wife earns a larger salary.
Because “life satisfaction” and “happiness” are subjective terms, take all of this with a grain of salt, but it was surprising how similar the results were across numerous surveys.
For example, one report stated that 70% of women who were not the primary breadwinners state they are very satisfied with their family life. That number drops to 56% if the women out-earn their husbands. [1]
That’s not a massive decrease, but it is statistically significant.
Another report showed lower levels of life satisfaction for both the husband and wife, but especially the husband, when the wife was the primary breadwinner. One report on European couples found that the men’s life satisfaction was the same for jobless couples as it was for female breadwinner couples. [2]
Look at this interesting statistic: sole breadwinner men report a fair amount of stress, but that stress lowers as their wife takes on financial responsibilities up to 40%, which is apparently a sweet spot. As the wife’s income passes the 50/50 mark, it is common for the husband’s reported stress to take a dramatic increase. [3]
It’s hard to make generalizations, but after reading half a dozen of these reports, my summary is marriage partners have a 10-20% chance of being less satisfied with life if the wife is the primary breadwinner.
There you have it. That’s the first part of the female breadwinner penalty: there’s a slightly higher probability that marriage partners will be less satisfied with life.
Read the next blog to read about some of the threats to the marriage union (primarily divorce).
[1] Ipsos Public Affairs, IFS/Wheatley Institution, 2018 Global Family and Gender Survey.
[2] Ferrari, G., Solaz, A., & Vitali, A. (2024). Are female-breadwinner couples always less stable? Evidence from french administrative data. European Journal of Population = Revue Européenne de Démographie, 40(1), 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-024-09705-7
[3] Syrda, J. (2020). Spousal relative income and male psychological distress. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(6), 976–992. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219883611
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