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At the Juggle, we've had plenty of discussion about wives outearning their
husbands-and how that changes the balance of power at home and at work.
Now, a new study has helped quantify this trend. The report, from the Pew
Research Center and based on census data, found that not only are women
increasingly better-educated than their husbands, but wives have also become the
primary breadwinner in one of five marriages. The study looked at spouses ages
30 to 44 over a time-frame of nearly four decades.
To be sure, men are still the major contributors of household income - with
78 percent making at least as much or more than their wives - but the percentage
of women earning more than their husbands has more than quadrupled, jumping from
just 4 percent in 1970 to 22 percent in 2007, the most recent year for which
data were available.
What's more, in 1970, 28 percent of wives had husbands who were better
educated, and 20 percent were married to men with less education. By 2007, the
comparable figures were 19 percent and 28 percent, according to a New York times
piece on the report. (Slightly more than half of spouses had matching education
levels in both 1970 and 2007.)
It used to be that marriage was one of the best ways for women to improve
their lives financially. (The old joke was that a woman went to college to get
her M.R.S-that is, a husband, who would provide for her financially.) But the
Pew report found that men are increasingly getting a financial boost from
marriage. Compared to 1970, when men usually married women with less education
and fewer wives worked, these changes have contributed to a 'gender role
reversal in the gains from marriage,' the Pew report said. 'What's radically
changed is that marriage now is a better deal for men,' said Richard Fry,
co-author of the report, to the Washington Post.
The report was compiled from data gathered before the recession, but Pew
researchers predict that the downturn will only further these trends as men have
especially been hit by job losses.
就妻子比丈夫挣钱多的现象，以及这种情况怎样改变了家庭与工作中的力量对比，本栏目曾展开大量讨论。
现在有一项新的研究对这一趋势进行了量化。皮尤研究中心(Pew Research
Center)一份基于调查数据的研究报告发现，不仅女性的文化程度比丈夫越来越高，而且五分之一的婚姻中，妻子成了家庭的主要收入来源。这项研究调查的是年龄在30到44岁的夫妇，时间跨度接近40年。
需要指出的是，男性仍然是家庭收入的主要贡献者，有78%的家庭中男性收入不低于妻子。但女性收入超过其丈夫的家庭比例，已经从1970年的4%上升到2007年的22%，增加了三倍多。研究的最新数据截止到2007年。
而且据《纽约时报》一篇有关这份报告的文章，1970年，28%的妇女受教育程度不及她们的丈夫，高于丈夫的比例为20%。到2007年，两个数字分别变成了19%和28%。(1970年和2007年，夫妻两人教育水平相当的家庭比例均略超过一半。)
婚姻曾经是妇女从财务上改善人生的最佳方式之一。(老笑话说，女人上大学是要拿“MRS”学位，也就是一个给她钱花的丈夫。)但皮尤研究中心的报告发现，越来越多的男性因结婚而改善了财务状况。1970年的时候，男人娶的女人受教育程度通常更低，而且妻子参与工作的情况也不像现在这么多。皮尤的报告说，这种变化造成了一种“从婚姻中获得提升的性别角色转换”。报告作者之一弗赖伊(Richard
Fry)对《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)说，已经发生的大变化是，现在婚姻对男人来说是一种更划算的交易。
报告的基础数据是在经济衰退前搜集的，但皮尤研究中心的研究人员预测，经济的不景气只会加剧这一趋势，因为失业对男性的打击尤为严重。 |
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发表于 2016-7-10 00:05:18