Despite Equal Earnings, Wives Often Shoulder More Domestic Responsibilities
A recent study from the Pew Research Center reveals the interesting fact that even when women earn the same or more than their husbands, they still shoulder the larger share of housework and childcare responsibilities. Conversely, their husbands tend to focus more on paid work and recreational activities.
Despite financial contributions in marriages becoming more balanced, the division of time between domestic and professional work remains skewed. The study found that in 29% of heterosexual marriages, both partners earn approximately $60,000 each. However, husbands in these relationships spend an extra 3.5 hours on leisure activities compared to their wives. Wives, on the other hand, devote about 2 hours more to caregiving and 2.5 hours more to housework each week.
The study further found that in 55% of opposite-sex marriages, men are the primary earners, bringing home a median income of $96,000 compared to their wives' $30,000. In contrast, in 16% of marriages, the wives outearn their husbands, with a median income of $88,000 against their husbands' $35,000.
Interestingly, the only situation where men were reported to devote more time to caregiving than their wives was when the wife was the sole breadwinner. In these cases, the time spent on household chores was evenly split.
This is a significant shift from the scenario 50 years ago when men were the primary earners in 85% of marriages. Nowadays, the likelihood of women being the chief or sole earners varies based on factors like age, family situation, education, and race.
For instance, the study discovered that Black women are significantly more likely than other women to earn more than their husbands, with 26% of Black women bringing home more than their spouses. This contrasts with 17% of White women and 13% of Hispanic women in the same situation. However, Black women with advanced degrees and fewer children at home are among those most likely to earn the same as their husbands.
These figures emerge against a backdrop of societal attitudes about earnings and the distribution of caregiving between spouses. Almost half of the Americans surveyed (48%) believed that husbands prefer to earn more than their wives, while only 13% felt that men would prefer their wives to earn the same as them. When asked about women's preferences, 22% of respondents felt that most women would prefer a higher-earning husband, while 26% believed most women would want a partner with similar earnings.
When it comes to parenting, a substantial 77% of the respondents believed that children fare better when both parents equally distribute their focus between work and childcare. A mere 19% felt that children are better off when their mother devotes more time to home life and their father to his job.
The Pew study gathered its data from the US Census’ Current Population Survey, the American Time Use Survey, and a national survey of public attitudes among 5,152 US adults conducted in January.