The gender role shift continues, and it could be putting more stress on young men than on their female spouses.
That’s what research from a University of Connecticut sociology team reported after it reviewed data on the effects of taking on greater economic or household responsibilities. Young husbands tended to report slightly less robust overall health when they took on greater financial responsibility for their families, while young women generally reported feeling healthier by doing so.
The team, led by Christina Munsch, studied Bureau of Labor Statistics data on 9,000 heterosexual married couples between the ages of 18 and 32. They used a psychological well-being measurement tool to evaluate the data.
What emerged was a picture of young men reporting a slightly less feeling of well-being when they contributed twice as much to the household piggy bank as did their wives. Married young men who contributed equally reported feeling a great sense of well-being.
The difference wasn’t huge — the equal contributors’ average score was 3.33 on a 4-point scale, compared to 3.27 for the double contributors. But, Munsch told CNN Money, that slight difference wasn’t the whole story. The score dropped to 3.17 for men who were bringing in 100 percent of the dough.
Meanwhile, women in the study who were completely dependent upon their hubbies for household money reported the lowest overall well-being score: 3.08. And those who were the least economically dependent had an average score of 3.17 — equal to the “low” score of the men who were the main breadwinners.
Munsch said she thinks the trend is a reflection of the desire among millennials to have more “egalitarian relationships.” Men and women in that age group aren’t hidebound by the “traditional” roles their parents learned as children. And, in fact, it suggests that more men want to stay at home than in any past generation.
“For women, because there isn't the expectation that you’re going to make as much money as possible for your family no matter the cost, I think they're much more likely to ask themselves, ‘Oh, is this what I really want to do?’” Munsch says. “And so when women do go into these high-level occupations, there’s more of a match between their preferences. So their psychological well-being is going to improve, whereas for men, it's not. … This is what [millennials] prefer when you ask ‘what kind of relationship do you want?’ They envision both partners contributing financially and both partners taking care of domestic responsibilities.”
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
