Men Aren't Rejecting Women For Making Too Much Money

And the boogeyman of the female breadwinner

It’s not every day that right-wing personality Matt Walsh QTs a friend of yours to dunk on him for his marriage. But alas, that happened yesterday, when my friend

Jeremiah Johnson

(subscribe to him if you don’t already) wrote that his wife out-earns him. I suppose in all fairness, the conversation originated with someone else quoting Matt Walsh on this subject, so it didn’t come completely out of left field, but it was still weird to see.

I should acknowledge that Matt Walsh isn’t just pulling stuff out of his ass. Couples where the woman out-earns the man are more likely to get divorced. Studies have also shown worse marital satisfaction (especially for husbands) in these marriages. It feels relevant that in the same study, divorce was also overall higher in scenarios where either partner didn’t work at all, or where the couple had a lower overall household income. Divorce is also correlated with lower educational attainment, and with getting married before age 25. It’s curious that a higher-earning female partner is the only risk factor that these people choose to mention.

But let’s talk about the guys who earn less money than their wives, because I think several groups are being conflated here. Mainly:

• Guys who happen to earn less money than their wives, but who are in the same overall socioeconomic bracket (for example, two lawyers, but the wife does corporate law and the husband works for the public sector, or the difference between a nurse and a firefighter.)

• Guys who are especially domestic and choose to be SAHDs

• Deadbeats married to middle or low-income women who out-earn them by default

Now, I don’t know Jeremiah Johnson’s salary or his wife’s, but it’s safe to say he’s in the first category, and I think marriages like that are probably fine. However, it’s a no-brainer that the deadbeat scenario would lead to problems. It reminds me of the fact that fathers whose wives out-earn them do even less around the house than dads whose wives earn the same or less than they do. I think this has less to do with animosity toward the high-earning wife, or the high-earning wife overcompensating, and more to do with the fact that deadbeats fall into this category. A guy who has no drive to work also has no drive to do the dishes.

What I want to examine is the idea that men are rejecting women for making too much money.