Marcy Theobald makes $57,500 a year and her husband, Merrick, makes $40,000. They know a lot about compromising. Their $17,500 salary gap has thrown some roadblocks in their plans to start a family, Marcy says.
The suburban Atlanta couple, who are in their late 20s, married in November 1998, and are eager to have children. And when they do, Marcy wants to be a stay-at-home mom. But Merrick’s current salary wouldn’t be enough to pay the mortgage or all the bills.
Marcy is among a growing number of female breadwinners playing a bigger role in families’ financial decisions. Recent studies show that about one in five married women earns more than her husband–a rare phenomenon 40 years ago.
“As wives’ incomes increase and they have greater earning power, the general household decisions will reflect their preferences,” said Anne Winkler, a University of Missouri-St. Louis associate professor who recently conducted a study of women wage-earners.
“This may mean that more money is spent on children. Women may have more weight when selecting big-ticket items for the family, too,” said Winkler, who used population surveys and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
The percentage of wives earning more than their husbands has risen to nearly 23 percent in 1997, from 15.9 percent in 1981, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
But the shift in earning power can take a toll on marriages. Some men become resentful. Some women feel guilty and are even reluctant to talk about the matter.
Other couples face problems because they feel they are in financial competition with each other, said Sarah Caudill of American Express Financial Advisors in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“There’s really no middle ground,” she said. “Either it’s a sore spot or they don’t even acknowledge it.”
More women are becoming breadwinners because more of them are obtaining college degrees, opening businesses and becoming better paid.
Labor participation rates among women have skyrocketed, according to Winkler’s study. In 1994, 61 percent of married women had jobs compared with 35 percent in 1966.
And some women, like Marcy Theobald, have put starting a family on hold to chase lucrative careers. “Since we are starting to plan on having kids within a year or two, it makes things a bit difficult,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to stay at home with the kids, but being the breadwinner, we just don’t see that happening right now.”
In public relations for a high-tech company in Atlanta, she said she makes more than her husband partly because she has been working in her field longer–3 1/2 years–compared with his two months at a marketing job.
As women have fewer children and bear them later in life, the percentage of wives making more than their husbands will continue to rise, said Naomi Lopez, director of the Center for Enterprise and Opportunity at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.
But the shift in earning power has some negative implications. A December 1998 national survey by Prudential Securities revealed that 53 percent of women think the financial imbalance would create marriage problems.
Some women don’t even want to discuss the topic.Cathy, an actuary at a benefits consulting company in Southfield, Mich., would talk only if the newspaper did not use her last name. Although she said she wasn’t embarrassed about the salary gap, she admitted that she doesn’t want people she works with to know how much she makes or that her husband, Jeff, makes less.
Cathy stressed that the $30,000 wage difference is no problem for the couple. “It really hasn’t been an issue,” she said. “Any major financial decision we make together.”
Sharing the bills and investments is fairly common among dual-earner couples in which the wife makes more, said Adam Rosier, senior financial adviser with American Express Financial Advisors in Southgate, Mich.
“Most people are successful in making money when they work as a team and don’t let egos get in the way,” he said.
Cathy said she feels content as long as they both are working and contributing. “I feel comfortable with us both dividing the pain,” she said.
Men who earn less than their spouses often have a difficult time dealing with the salary gap, especially if they move to improve the wife’s career, said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an international outplacement company in Chicago.
“When the man trails his spouse, the emotions are just more dialed up,” Challenger said. “They have trouble dealing with the emotional balance, and they often question their worth. It can really be damaging to a marriage.”
It’s more acceptable in society for a woman to take time off in a transitional period so that she can settle the children in school and look for housing, but for the husband it might not seem that he’s carrying the load, he said.
It’s also a matter of resentment, Challenger added. A husband who follows his wife to a new city because of her job most likely has given up a decent job, so that makes the move painful, he said.
But beyond moving, men often question their value in the family when they make less, he said.
Marcy Theobald said the first few months of their marriage were difficult because she was the only one working while Merrick looked for a job. He had been out of the workforce to pursue an MBA in marketing. “To be honest, it was harder for him than it was for me,” Marcy said.
Women still are expected to be the dishwashers, baby-sitters and housekeepers for the family, said Judi Casey, director of the New England Work and Family Association at the Boston College Center for Work and Family. “It seems like it’s stressful for them because there is really no break at home,” Casey said. “The underlying question is: Are the men sharing more or is the wife coming home and doing everything? If she is, that doesn’t make a good family.”
But Casey said most women can’t afford to stay home and raise their children. In 1997, 17 percent of all families conformed to the 1950s model of a wage-earning dad, a stay-at-home mom and one or more children, according to census data.
Even Winkler’s study suggests that, just because the wife makes more, it doesn’t mean that her income will take precedence over the husband’s. In many families, she said, if a husband earns just a little less than his wife, he still could be perceived as the primary earner in the family because of traditional gender roles.
Her study revealed that some of the wives did, indeed, make only slightly more than their husbands. Only 15 percent of wives had wages that were 25 percent more than their husbands, and 10 percent had wages that were greater by 50 percent or more.
Winkler said the breadwinner is more likely to be able to initiate wage-enhancing moves to improve his or her career and is less likely to be subject to moves with negative consequences.
Therefore, if the wife makes more than the husband, by a small margin, she still might be considered to have the secondary income.
Maggie Rinaldi, honorary president of the National Chamber of Commerce for Women, cautions that this statistic is somewhat deceiving: Just because some women are making more than their husbands doesn’t mean they are becoming more equal to men.
Statistics show that women, as a group, still earn about 74 cents for every $1 men earn. According to Winkler’s study, the mean hourly wage was $15.42 for dual-earner husbands and $10.58 for wives.
“It’s not an issue of whether 20 percent of women earn more than their husbands,” she said. “The bigger issue is, do those women earn as much as men doing comparable work in their industry or profession? You have to compare apples with apples.”
