The "Breadwinner Wife Penalty" Could Be Hurting Your Marriage

For the first half of my marriage, I had never heard of the breadwinner wife penalty. After our children were born, we were living in Brooklyn and my salary was three times as much as my husband's salary. When we moved to the Bay Area for a job opportunity, we decided that my husband would become a stay-at-home dad for a while. We experienced our share of challenges, both individually and as a couple. But it never dawned on me that couples where the wife outearns her husband might have quantifiably more challenges than the average married couple.

As a market researcher who has focused on gender bias in Silicon Valley and beyond, I have surveyed and interviewed hundreds of breadwinner wives and their partners — and can attest to the fact that the penalty is real. At the same time, I'm convinced that the next generation of breadwinner wives and their enlightened partners will do better. There is a lot to learn from our lived experiences, mistakes, and triumphs. But it starts by understanding — and talking about — the phenomenon.

Pew defines breadwinner wives in opposite-sex marriages as wives in marriages where they are the sole breadwinner or earn more than 60 percent of the couple's combined earnings. For example, if you earn $80,000 annually and your husband earns $50,000, you earn 62 percent of your combined income of $130,000 and are considered a breadwinner wife. One in six opposite-sex marriages (16 percent) include breadwinner wives, which is up from 5 percent in 1972.

Pew has also found that women are outpacing men when it comes to higher education. Almost half (46 percent) of US women aged 25-34 had a bachelor's degree in 2021, compared to just over one-third (36 percent) of men 25-34. Given this gap in college degrees, women are poised to increasingly outearn their peers, and the number of breadwinner wives will continue to increase.

It's important to note that my research (and the research that I cite) refers to heterosexual marriages. Couples in same-sex partnerships may experience similar challenges, but that has not been sufficiently studied.

Research studies have shown four distinct penalties that couples with breadwinner wives face.

1. Breadwinner wives do extra work at home.

When I first started researching breadwinner wives, I came across an article that showed that in couples where wives outearn their husbands, the wife spends an average of 13 additional hours weekly on non-paid chores and childcare compared to her husband. The researchers suggested that "a wife making more money is doing more chores to assuage her husband's unease," per a press release.

The suggestion here is that the husband's ego is taking a hit when the wife outearns him. As a result, the wife will come home from work, make dinner, and do the dishes so that her husband can feel better about himself. Give me a break. (For the record, my husband is the exclusive cook in our household.)

2. Breadwinner wives are more likely to have their partners cheat on them.

Another study found that men who were the primary or sole breadwinners were more likely to cheat on their wives than men whose wives earned a more equal share of income. However, men who were completely dependent on their wives' income were most likely to cheat. In contrast, for women, breadwinning decreases the incidence of infidelity. In this study, the researchers state, "I argue that by remaining faithful, breadwinning women neutralize their gender deviance and keep potentially strained relationships intact."

The academic literature refers to this as "masculine overcompensation" and "compensatory manhood acts." In my opinion, a compensatory manhood act should be wiping the kitchen island, not shtupping the lady from your yoga class. For the record, many of the breadwinner wives with whom I have spoken (and even some whose marriages ended in divorce) did not believe there was infidelity in their marriages.

3. Breadwinner wives are less happy.

When asked the question, "How satisfied are you with your family life?" breadwinner moms were 55 percent less likely to be very satisfied with their family life than mothers who were not the primary breadwinner, according to 2019 research. This was true even after controlling for external factors like financial status and household division of labor. In other words, even if we control for who does the laundry and for income levels, breadwinner wives are less happy than their non-breadwinning wife counterparts.

4. Breadwinning Wives are more likely to get divorced.

Based on the first three penalties, it's probably not surprising to hear that in a given year, if a woman earns more than her spouse, she is twice as likely to get divorced than if her spouse outearns her. And women whose husbands earn $38,000 more than their wives are the least likely to get divorced.

By now, you should get the sense that the breadwinner wife penalty is real. Breadwinner wives (and their spouses) face more challenges than other couples. But while this penalty has been very much felt for decades, it has to be addressed for the educated Millennial and Gen Z women who are likely to outearn their partners.

I have been incredibly happy for (almost) the entirety of my tenure as a breadwinner wife. I am proud of my professional accomplishments and of being able to support our family as a sole proprietor for more than a decade. I am happy to show an alternate family breadwinner formation (not a deviant formation!) to my children and their friends. I have been able to travel the world, meet and work with amazing people, all while feeling supported at home.

Other breadwinner wives I surveyed also talked about what they find empowering about their situation. "I always know what our financial standings are. I always know that I can take care of the family if something happened to my spouse," one replied. "You get to direct your own life. Very independent and interesting and fulfilling. The feeling of success," another said. A third put it simply: "Knowing I can give my family everything they deserve."

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing more lessons learned from breadwinner wives and their partners on some of the specific challenges and lessons learned to help women and their partners at the outset of a relationship, or when circumstances change and they find themselves as breadwinner wives. Follow along here.

Michele Madansky is a digital research and advertising pioneer and sought-after media and market research consultant. She is a self-proclaimed "breadwinner wife" who is currently working on a book called "Breadwinner Wives Thriving."