Time to rethink gender stereotypes as more women take the lead as breadwinners

Men have historically been the primary financial providers in a marriage, but times are changing. Increasingly women are taking the financial lead, both as primary earners and financial decision makers for the household.

Evidence of the global shift can be seen in the estimation that women are the primary earners in 33 percent of all relationships in the US, UK and Canada, up from approximately 13 percent in 1980.

What research consistently shows, however, is that this income-earning shift has not been matched by a shift in the caregiving load. Even when a woman earns more than a man with whom she lives, she is typically still responsible for most of the childcare and running the household.

This raises many issues.

When couples do not share responsibilities

Sociologist Alexandra Killewald’s study of labour division and divorce in the US since the 1970s, shows that the split in income earning levels (the wife being the majority earner or vice versa) was not necessarily a factor that would result in divorce.

She also found that wives can combine paid and unpaid work in any combination without destabilising the marriage.

But when a man is not in full-time employment and not compensating by assisting with the running of the household or caregiving, the risk of divorce increases materially. Put simply: it is not that a man earns less that is an issue, it is the combination of not earning and not contributing domestically.

As the secondary earner, or the person not earning at all, a man may struggle psychologically with feelings of inadequacy, especially as it is the stereotypical norm to assume he is earning. Men are typically presented with the bills to pay, for example.

A woman may be stretched too thin due to work, child raising and financial decision-making responsibilities. Resentment can grow if there is no proportional reduction in both the financial and caregiving load, a well-trodden path to burnout and marital dissatisfaction.

Stats SA’s recent divorce data shows that women filed for approximately 57 percent of all divorces – explicitly noting that access to income and professional stability contributed to their decision to terminate their marriages.

How to maintain marital harmony

What can couples do to ensure that they take care of each other and maintain marital and family harmony even when the breadwinner roles differ from stereotypical norms?

A united front is key. Accept that your family’s financial, caregiving and domestic needs are a joint responsibility and renegotiate domestic and caregiving loads based on your actual work commitments and income reality rather than defaulting to traditional gender roles. Increased domestic and caregiving assistance may be a necessity for which you need to provide.

A structured and fully transparent joint decision-making process on money that caters for both spouses' needs and goals, may reduce resentment that may arise from a woman having to do everything and feeling unsupported. It can also help a man with feelings of inadequacy that may arise due to him being a secondary earner or not earning at all and his wife being in control of the finances.

Where a man is unable to separate his identity and sense of self-worth from being the primary breadwinner, couples therapy may assist greatly. This is ultimately more of an emotional and identity issue than a financial issue and couples therapy has been shown to dramatically improve marital harmony.

Before you get together

If you are in a committed relationship and want to get married, clear discussions about the future and your expectations in terms of work and having a family through pre-marital counselling, are key.

In my own relationship, I knew from before we were married that my wife wanted to work towards a PhD, start a private practice and have a full and engaging career. This was evident at the start of our relationship as my wife was the major earner.

I would need to step up around the house and to help raise our future children, but I also had my own ambitions for my career which meant we would need to get more domestic help and child support in future.

Having two working parents is a very different dynamic to the one I had growing up where my father was the provider and my mother ran the household, cared for me and was our primary financial decision maker.

Living with a new dynamic is a constant work in progress, and it will never be perfect. I have taken on and improved at several unfamiliar tasks and roles, both domestically and in caring for our children.

Clear communication and stepping up when my wife is taking greater strain at work has been key in this.

This has helped us find a good balance between work, family and domestic responsibilities, that any couple dealing with the reversal of traditional roles of breadwinner and primary caregiver can also achieve.