REUTERS/Sam Mircovich
It seems that even for the ladies, it’s mo’ money, mo’ problems.
The New York Post reports that a study to be published in the Journal of Family Issues in October found that women who earned more than their husbands, were almost 40% more likely to divorce than their lesser-earning counterparts.
The study, which was conducted over the course of 25 years, found that women who earned around 60% of the total household income were much more likely to split. Surprisingly, it also didn’t matter how affluent the couple was; rich or poor, a couple was more likely to split if the woman was the main breadwinner.
(See “The New Sexism”, TIME’s Q&A with author Susan Douglas.)
Western Washington University Sociologist Jay Teachman told the Post that there are a few reasons why more money leads to more divorces, the first being that women with more cash are afforded more freedom to leave disappointing partners.
But gender roles, male ego and resentment also all come into play, according to Teachman. He said he’d be interested in conducting the study again in the future with a new generation of women.
“The group of women [in the study] are the last generation, who may not have expected to have the careers they ended up having,” he said.
Not to mention the generation of the men they married. (via the New York Post)