New York
CNN
–
Few women will be surprised to find that even if wives make money with husbands or more husbands, a new Pew Research Center study found that they still spend more time on family labor and childcare, while husbands spend more time on paid work and leisure.
“Even if financial contributions to marriages become increasingly equal, the way couples divide their time between paid work and family life remains unbalanced,” Pew noted.
So who made what?
Pew found that in 29% of heterosexual marriages today, men and women earn roughly the same income (about $60,000 per person). “House in equal marriages spends about 3.5 hours a week on leisure activities. The study notes that wives in these marriages spend about 2 hours of care per week, not husbands, and about 2.5 hours on homework.”
In 55% of heterosexual marriages, men are the primary or only breadwinner, with the median $30,000 for wife’s $96,000.
Meanwhile, in 16% of marriages, wives use their husband as primary school (10%) or the only breadwinner (6%). In these marriages, the median for women is $35,000 for husbands.
Of all these categories, the only category where men reportedly spend more time caring for than their wives is that women are the only breadwinners. The time spent between husband and wife on the chores of these marriages is evenly distributed.
In all cases, this is a big change compared to 50 years ago – for example, husbands are the main breadwinner in 85% of marriages.
Today, women are most likely to be the primary or only breadwinners to vary by age, family status, education, and race.
Pew, for example, found that black women are “probably more likely” to make more money than other women than their husbands. For example, 26% of black women took home more than their husbands, while only 17% of white women and 13% of Hispanic women do so.
However, black women with college degrees or higher have few children at home and are the most likely husbands to obtain.
These figures are reported in the context of society’s attitudes toward who should earn more, and how care is distributed among spouses.
In a Pew survey, nearly half of Americans (48%) said husbands would rather earn more than their wives, while 13% said men prefer their wives to earn roughly the same income as theirs.
What do women want? 22% of Americans say most women want a profitable husband, while 26% say most people want a man to make money.
Meanwhile, when it comes to a family, 77% say that children are better when both parents are equally focused on work and caring for them. Only 19% say that when mothers focus more on family life, the child will be better and fathers pay more attention to his work.
The Pew study is based on three data sources: income data from the current population survey of the U.S. Census; data from the U.S. Time Us Survey, and a national representative survey of 5,152 U.S. adults on public attitudes toward public attitudes conducted in January.
