Liza Mundy's 'The Richer Sex' Predicts Gender Role Reversal

'The Richer Sex' by Liza Mundy predicts a sea change in the way men and women relate to each other.

We’ve heard a lot about the downfall of marriage lately; less than half of adults in the U.S. are married, according to the latest 2011 PEW Study.

But at one demographic has seen a recent increase in marriage rates: high-earning women. The implications of this phenomenon on everything from the economy to our sex lives is the subject of a new book by Liza Mundy: “The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family,” on sale Tuesday, March 20 and featured on the March 15 cover of TIME magazine.

Mundy bases her argument in part on the findings of The Hamilton Project, which studied income and work patterns and found that while women in lower income brackets were getting married in smaller numbers, marriage rates for women in the top earning percentile increased by ten percentage points, suggesting that with increased work opportunities for women, more women are choosing marital as well as financial independence -- though women who have reached he pinnacles of financial success are pairing off in increasing numbers. As Mundy describes it, the reason for the uptick is that men view a woman's earning power as more attractive than ever before. And that, Mundy claims, means we're in for a huge dismantling -- in some cases a complete reversal -- of traditional gender roles.

One of the signs of what Mundy describes in the book as the "Big Shift" is women's academic prowess. 57 percent of undergraduates are female, and women earn the majority of doctorates and master’s degrees, leading some experts to suggest that in a quarter century, medicine and law fields will be dominated by women. While some, like UK Universities Minister David Willetts, have suggested that the gender gap in education will lead women to “dumb themselves down” or hide their success to catch a husband, Mundy argues the opposite: “Men are just as willing as women to marry up, and life is now giving them the opportunity to do so.”

As proof, she cites a 2001 study led by psychologist David Buss at The University of Texas at Austin that found a vast change in the values men reported looking for in a mate: Over a 50 year period, the importance men placed on a woman’s income and ability to support herself rose astronomically while a once-strong emphasis on her domestic skills plummeted. Changing ideas of masculinity and the fact that men are now more involved at home have a lot to do with that, Mundy suggests.

While not all of her predictions for future gender dynamics are positive, one thing is clear: The days when pop culture can call to mind a strictly female “Gold-digger” are numbered.

SLIDESHOW: 10 Predictions From "The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family"

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• More Families Will Be Supported By Women Than Men

  The 2009 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey found that in 4 out of 10 working couples, <a href="http://bls.gov/cps/wlftable25-2010.htm" target="_hplink">wives out-earned their husbands</a> -- essentially doubling this figure in two decades.

• Women Will Do Less Housework As Men Continue To Do More

  In <em><a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109140,00.html" target="_hplink">TIME</a></em>, Mundy cites a 2000 study from Ohio State University showing that the amount of time spent on housework per day for women decreased by 70 minutes between the 1970s and the aughts but for men has increased by 30 minutes since 1965.

• Women's Economic Influence Will Be Great For Business

  Mundy points out PEW research showing that in households where the woman makes more than her husband, she makes twice as many buying decisions. In 2009 Goldman Sachs predicted that the food, health care, education, and childcare sectors, along with many other industries, would receive a boost from women's increased purchasing power.

• Rates of Cohabitation And Single Living Will Continue To Rise

  "Women can afford to wait," Mundy writes.

• Men Will Do More Hands-On Parenting

  It's been widely reported that with rising unemployment, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/role-reversal-unemployment-creates-stay-home-fathers/story?id=11983642." target="_hplink">more men are becoming stay-at-home dads</a>. While the closer ties between child and father are a good thing, Mundy suggests that it may also lead to mothers spending more hours away from their families to feel further apart from their children.

• Men Will Marry Up

  With less stigma around a wife out-earning her husband and the offer of more and more successful women, why not?

• Definition Of 'Masculinity' Will Adapt And Expand

  Think "[h]unting but also cooking. Golf but also child care," writes Mundy.

• Fathers In Dual-Earner Families Will Feel More Work-Family Conflict Than Mothers

  Mundy cites research from the Families & Work Institute that found fathers in dual income households are already <a href="http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/Times_Are_Changing.pdf" target="_hplink">feeling more pressure to balance family and work</a> than mothers.

• Women Will Struggle With What Privileges -- If Any -- Come With Earning More

  As women earn their own money and it becomes "shared" money, questions will arise about whether they need to consult their spouses before buying things for themselves. Also, do they need to help out as much at home if they make the higher salary? "Just as women begin to feel that maybe it is okay to luxuriate a little bit, when they get home from work," Mundy writes, "the next question arises: Just how much lux"uriating is fair?

• Women Will Have To Adjust What They Value In Men

  When traditionally masculine traits fall away, including being the primary earner, women will have to learn to appreciate different traits in his male partners. Is it his cooking? His parenting skills? The way he makes sure you come home to a clean house and kids?

Comments

[cbt76]

04:44 PM on 05/10/2013

Another feminist/politically correct attempt to try and make it seem as if every difference between the sexes is learned. Really stupid. Men aren't attracted to women for their salaries. Never will be. Please, stop trying to impose BS upon us.

[jsladder]

10:39 AM on 04/09/2012

As long as they stay thin, who cares what they make.

[AmongUsHumans]

09:55 AM on 03/25/2012

Liza Mundy's book is about people in the United States in high-paying jobs. It is not about MOST MEN and MOST WOMEN in this country. Read along side this book about money (not human beings) research on the decline in women's overall happiness and sense of well-being during the time covered by the study. Also read about the consequences for men of under-education and the dramatic rise in male suicides at all levels of economic status and class during the period of the study. Ms Mundy's book, whatever the reality of its predictions, misses most of what is important about men and women today.

[SmileAndActNice]

12:48 AM on 03/24/2012

There are two kinds of happy marriages.

1) Both spouses are self sufficient and have sufficient income to sustain the entire family without the other spouse. Financial decisions are generally joint but while consensus is sought it isn't required. Each spouse, for example, can fund a purchase the other feels is unwise without using the other's resources. They are together because they love each other. Not because they need each other.

2) Neither spouse is self sufficient alone and it is only through their combined effort that the family prospers. Both spouses respect and appreciate the contributions of the other. Financial decisions are joint as neither partner has unilateral say. They both love and need each other.

---

When there is a power inversion ... when one of the pair is made a child by forced dependance on the other ... that is a problem. It isn't healthy.

The stay-at-home model started in a time when a fair amount of economic wealth was created in the home. For example a shepherd working outside the home would bring home wool that the stay-at-home wife would weave into clothe that sold for significantly more than bulk wool costs.

The industrial revolution has destabilized this model by moving the means of production outside the home so that it is very difficult to contribute meaningfully to the family without leaving the house. We know this instinctively no matter how much we try to inflate the value of dusting.

[Marcy Twete]

12:53 PM on 03/23/2012

I love that women are becoming the "Richer Sex", but I have to ask the question - does it matter if we make more money than our husbands if we're still making less money than our male counterparts in the workforce? Let's not pretend that our wealth makes the equal pay problem go away! I wrote about this on my own site, Career Girl Network, today: http://careergirlnetwork.com/the-richer-sex-changing-the-game/

[Mantis Vyden]

05:48 PM on 03/22/2012

Give it a generation or two, when women make up 90% of the work-force and men have regressed into beer-drinking, unemployed, video-game obsessed, neanderthals and then women will complain, "There's no good men left! They're all lazy! We demand they get back to work, so we can stay at home too!" After all, wasn't the old social structure of marriage built by the complaints of women? Looks like people forget their history.

[SmileAndActNice]

08:25 PM on 03/22/2012

Women stopped going out to gather the families food every day when they discovered beer.

Men wanted beer so badly that they agreed to start gathering too so that their wives could make more. The challenge of getting enough grain to make lots of beer begat agriculture.

Now that women no longer had to gather all the time they got bored and started inventing industries like weaving, dying, soap making, pottery, rope making, tailoring, and taking cooking to unforeseen height of excellence ( can't have good stone ovens to bake in as nomads ).

They stayed at home because that was where the means of production were. The name of the game was cottage industry and that happens *** in the cottage*** where your still, loom, oven, mortar/pestle, porters wheel, etc is.

Men ran around chasing cattle about, pulling plows, digging holes, hunting, fishing, etc. they made things now and then and a few men like blacksmiths made things all the time but the vast sum of finished goods available was almost entirely made by women's hands.

Then the industrial revolution came about and just as once we were freed from gathering now we are frees from cottage industry.

So well figure out something new to do.

Because working is instinctive to us.

Always has been.

[Sensitive Man]

09:27 AM on 03/23/2012

So beer created civilization. Is there anything beer can't do?

[Souris9]

10:33 AM on 03/23/2012

What a funny way to end your post, considering the rest of it!

[Lisa Guest]

04:21 PM on 03/22/2012

I totally see this. As the economy collapses, men want a woman with money to carry the load. I know two personally who chose a partner because she could support him. Good timing for them.

[Mantis Vyden]

03:35 PM on 03/22/2012

Sweet, now poor guys like me can collect alimony! :)

[Souris9]

10:35 AM on 03/23/2012

Sweet, now anyone foolish enough to marry you knows your plans and can get a pre-nup!

[jf12]

08:51 AM on 03/22/2012

"We’ve heard a lot about the downfall of marriage lately" "not all of her predictions for future gender dynamics are positive"

[PitBull6]

11:20 AM on 03/21/2012

"men view a woman's earning power as more attractive than ever before."

So much for the cliched theory that men were afraid of "strong women"

[windswand]

11:00 AM on 03/21/2012

I read this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gail-konop-baker/women-want-sex-more-than-men_b_977416.html over 6 months ago. and it was probably written over a year ago. definitely an interesting topic, but liza mundy is by no means the first woman to bring it up....

[dawglover704]

10:48 AM on 03/21/2012

Love this article !

[Tmus82]

10:28 AM on 03/21/2012

As a man I say bring on gender equality I would love to marry up I love to cook, smart educated woman are f'n sexy.

[IslamicPacifist]

05:55 AM on 03/21/2012

I once ran a foot race against a woman
They gave me a 20lbs weight vest
They gave her a five second head start
When she won,
They proclaimed that she,
Like all other women,
Were outperforming men

[justwhendoesitend]

12:49 AM on 03/21/2012

This is what is wrong with society, freaking obsession measuring success with wealth. It is good that women are succeeding in education and career. But they are many who are sad failures in life. I see it all the time. It is people and relationships that are important and make your life rich and bring happiness. Careers and independence is most important objective. Women are longer seeing relationships with men as one of supporting each other through life, more of business relationship for selfish benefit. When those benefits run the course, you just write off the loss and move on.

But I do not see the benefit of males marrying women these days with many of these successful women. Men we do not really understand women, but women are as clueless about the male gender. Whatever the point of view, opinions of individuals I see women taking much more interest in themselves and becoming withdrawn from males.

Most of the women I work(ed) with are scary (those in this country) and not people I trust. I have little in common with their values and attitudes. I feel they should not be allowed to have children, so many failures in their personal lives. Seems like they form a business more then a marriage, when benefits run their course, write it off and move on.

I am just fortunate I have a great relationship, I got lucky.

[ktmckinsey]

10:48 AM on 03/22/2012

"Seems like they form a business more then a marriage, when benefits run their course, write it off and move on."

For many generations, this is how men viewed marriage. They married for monetary, social, and political gain. They didn't have any real personal loyalty to their families. Some women are acting like the high powered men of yesteryear. Haven't you ever heard the joke about exchanging two twenty year old for your 40 year old wife? I somehow don't think a woman thought that joke up.