Does Earning More Than Your Spouse Increase Your Financial Satisfaction? A Comparison of Men and Women in the United States, 1982 to 2012

Abstract

Scholars have argued that both husbands and wives are less satisfied if wives outearn their husbands because this violates the norms of the male breadwinner model. Some scholars find support for this hypothesis when studying the division of household work, marital dissolution, or depression, but other scholars do not find clear evidence. This article adds to this literature by asking how people's roles in bringing money into the household (as a primary or secondary earner) affect how they feel about that money itself. Analysis of decades of U.S. data finds a clear and consistent result: individuals-whether men or women, whether committed to the male breadwinner model or not-are all more satisfied with their family's financial situation when they earn more than their spouse. Here, generic social psychological processes (like relative deprivation) appear to trump even powerful worldviews, like the male breadwinner model.

Manage Your Money, Be Satisfied? Money Management Practices and Financial Satisfaction of Couples Through the Lens of Gender

“…Instead, the negative association between a woman’s relative income and financial well-being results from traditional gender norms and breadwinning culture. Moreover, in a recent study of long-term US trends, Eirich and Robinson (2017) find little proof of resource exchange theory. They instead suggest that social psychological processes are the reason why individuals are more financially satisfied if they out-earn their partners, independent of gender.…”

The Partner Pay Gap: Associations between Spouses’ Relative Earnings and Life Satisfaction among Couples in the UK

“…A study by Ahn et al (2014) finds that in Denmark, a highly gender-egalitarian society, both men and women report higher financial satisfaction when they contribute a greater share to household labour income, though for women this association is only significant for cohabiting and not married women. Similarly, in a US sample, the spouse with the higher relative income within the couple reports higher levels of satisfaction with the household’s financial situation, regardless of the respondent’s sex or their level of gender traditionalism (Eirich and Robinson, 2017). This goes against assumptions that gender norms are always trumped by economic considerations – at least with respect to financial satisfaction.…”

Intra-Couple Income Distribution and Subjective Well-Being: The Moderating Effect of Gender Norms

“…They interpret the results "as illustrative of the expectations held for male economic behavior in traditional conceptions of marriage and the discontent that ensues when such expectations are unfulfilled" (Furdyna et al, 2008, p. 341). On the other hand, Eirich and Robinson (2016) find that full-time working married American individuals are more satisfied with their family's financial situation when they earn more money than they spouse -whether they are women or men. However, the authors have also found that traditional gender ideology does not moderate this association, and they conclude that social comparison processes (relative deprivation) can trump the traditional prescription of the male breadwinning role.…”

“…Previous research on this issue used Western European and American data (Ahn et al, 2014;Bertrand et al, 2015;Bonke, 2008;Eirich and Robinson, 2016;Furdyna et al, 2008;Rogers and DeBoer, 2001). It has found mostly negative associations between women's relative income and men's financial or marital happiness, whereas the results are mixed and less conclusive for women.…”