A Marriage Mystery: Why Aren't More Wives Outearning Their Husbands?

Why Aren't More Wives Outearning Their Husbands?

With women taking more than half of the country's new bachelor's degrees, many of them should be the chief breadwinners in their families. They're not. How come?

The rise of women in the workforce has been hailed by The Atlantic as not only the greatest economic development in the last 50 years, but also the most positive overall development in the whole global economy. But a new study suggests that, for working women in the U.S., there is a surprising cost to earning more than your partner. Evidence suggests that couples are less likely to get married if the woman's income exceeds her partner's. Once married, a wife earning more than her husband is more likely to be unhappy in the marriage, more likely to feel pressured to take fewer hours, and more likely to get divorced.

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