Often, when reading research reports on marriage or parenting, I wonder who the hell the pollsters have been talking to. Not so with the most recent report out of the Pew Center for Research. “New Economics of Marriage:The Rise of Wives,” which has spawned some interesting coverage on NPR and in the NYTimes left me wondering if they had planted a bug in my house.
My wife makes more than me. (While DadLabs is an amazing gig, it is a labor of love, alas. Although I hasten to add that unlike those men featured in the study, I do have more education than my wife — a highly marketable MFA in playwriting.) Oddly the Times reporter characterized women to be “victims” of this trend, which is maybe the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Making more and getting more education makes women victims? Isn’t that a little turned around? Somehow married men are the “beneficiaries” of the increased earning power of women.
It sure as hell is not the way it has sorted out in our house. My wife as top household earner is a relatively new situation (we made almost exactly the same salary for the decade or so we were colleagues at a private school) and one that I confess has been harder for me to handle than almost any aspect of “new parenting.” I’m not terribly hung up on some stereotypical male “provider” impulse or anything, but I do want to have an equal say on major family financial decisions. With my wife out-earning me, her salary invests her with proportionately more votes than me. This is never overtly stated, but it sits there like a neatly stacked pile of Benjamins whenever budgetary items are on the table.
Now I know I’m not alone. Though, on the surface, I am in the minority. Just 22% of wives out-earn their husbands, compared with 4% in 1970. (The study is based on 2007 census data, so one can only assume from what we are hearing about the gender bias of the current recession, the trends here have only accelerated.) Anecdotally, I bet the greatest density of top earning wives is found in the secular middle and upper-middle class. At the fancy schools our kids attend, I see a pretty high density of stay at home moms, and the greatest pushback DadLabs has ever encountered has come from the religious right — so I’m guessing the wife-at-home model is most popular with the rich and the religious.
But among our peers, I see a lot of hard working and successful women. And none of them look anything like “victims” to me.
Hey Daddy Clay,
Thanks for the article. I can relate to this because my wife makes more money than me right now.
She is a physician and I left my VP of Marketing job over a year ago to start a company. If it weren’t for her I would not be able to do what I am doing right now. I know many other entrepreneur friends who had to give up because they could not sustain a negative cash flow situation for very long. She is very supportive of what I am doing.
I can remember just several years ago I was working to put her through medical school while earning my MBA. It was kinda hard, but that’s what family is about – we’re a team and we sacrifice for each other so everyone can be the best they can be.