Why men get sad when their wives earn more
Hello all.
Yesterday I published a piece on the BBC closely related to the topic I’ve spent more than a year researching for Breadwinners - and the response has been illuminating and highlights exactly what I’ve discovered - there is so much judgement and expectation around who earns what that the topic itself is polarising. More than that, it helps to vocalise what some experience, when it can feel quite taboo to discuss. The piece looked at how what we earn can affect our mental wellbeing, especially when we compare ourselves to those around us – and it took a look especially at how when women earn more than men, it can negatively influence male mental health.
I want to open a broader debate about how our work and home lives intersect, and how it affects relationships and wellbeing, so I’m sharing a few comments (names changed) that I was sent the day the piece (linked below) was published.
Keith, a stay-at-home parent writes that he’s frustrated that his voice is often “unnoticed by commentators” and wants to highlight how positive his experience has been:
We… at that time lived in Norway. Mothers were obliged to take three months leave, and fathers one month. After the three months parents could share the parental leave as they chose. Employment was legally protected. In our case I took the leave and X returned to work. Once that parental leave period was exhausted parents could return to work on a percentage basis, receiving that percentage of income. I started at 50% with my son in kindergarten, rising to 70% as he became old enough to stay longer. Then our daughter was born and the cycle started again.
All by choice. No depression, low self esteem, stress. Just the best time I could have ever have had.
That may be so, but as I explore in Breadwinners, he is an anomaly among the roughly 5% of stay-at-home dads, though I did find several other positive stories, showing change is possible.
In response to stay-at-home dads feeling more isolated, Jack writes:
I experienced this myself, but more importantly is that this possible explanation applies to widowers as well... The reason is that women find more support than men when when their partner dies, due to their social ties and social stigma that men should be independent and should not be carers. I am a widower myself and can confirm this from experience. I managed to get through bereavement with my children with the support of great women who are my best friends. My male friends were lost and their suggestions were meaningless as they had no clue what it means to be a breadwinner and raise children all alone.
Smith wrote how he’s frustrated at the lack of expectation of men to do housework - even by other women - which reinforces the issue:
[I] really related to how outside males can look down sometimes. [Other women] often just can’t believe I am actually doing the house work.’
What he is getting at is the fact that because these expectations often aren’t communicated, women end up doing more than their fair share. A huge issue here is that because women take on large aspects of hidden labour, it can be invisible and difficult to share.
Patricia, a historian writes how we may feel like change is occurring, but history tells a different story:
[Historically] As long as women weren’t allowed to earn money (or for people to view it as “pin money*” if they did), no one wrote articles on how this damages women—even as it made them incredibly vulnerable to men’s whims. And then of course when women did assert their rights, people viewed THEM as the problem—and still often enough. But also, women have always had to earn money—if not all women, plenty of them… I just wish there was more historical context so people understood this isn’t a new thing, that men feeling this way is a holdover (and likely it means some women hide their real earnings when dating or married).
*Pin money was a yearly allowance male husbands gave to their wives. I’d never heard of this before and is a topic I want to dive into more in the future. Historians, do get in touch!
Can you relate to any of the above? I’d love to hear more if so.
Read the intro to the piece below - the full piece is on the BBC:
"It stings your pride a little bit that your wife's the one out making all the money," said Dave, of his status as a stay-at-home dad.
"I'm, you know, a guy's guy... you tell them you stay home, and... they think you're some feminine dude," said Tom. Both were participants in an in-depth research study where men and women were interviewed about the impact of the women in the relationships being the breadwinners.
Another, Brendon, had good reason to feel judged: family members labelled him "the house bitch".
These are but three examples of the judgement experienced by men who don't have jobs outside the home, and whose female partners are the primary earners.
In the study, the men said they felt judged partly because it's long been assumed that men are the main breadwinners in society. However, an increasing number of women are outearning their male partners, and this gradual rise of female breadwinners is revealing that who earns the money has lasting and influential impacts on power dynamics both at home, and in wider society.
A key reason these changing family dynamics are so influential is because money is so closely tied to power. When men aren't the highest earners in their household – but are expected to be by some sections of society – it can lead them to feel disempowered, decreasing mental wellbeing and even increasing the likelihood of divorce.
When men are out of work, they have been shown to have higher rates of depression compared to out-of-work women
Overall, men still tend to outearn women and among married couples with children, and women do more childcare and housework than men, a stubborn discrepancy found globally. In part this is thought to be due to gender expectations, but in some cases it may also reflect an economic necessity where the higher earner's career tends to be prioritised, so women are more likely to step back into part-time, flexible roles.
Despite the increase in breadwinning women, gender attitudes to paid work and roles at home have been slower to change. Even if women are the higher earners, they still do more housework and childcare than lower-earning male partners. And while among some age groups there's been an increase in support for gender equality, men still show lower satisfaction if they are out-earned.
An increasing body of research shows that it can affect a man's self-esteem and happiness if their female partner earns more than them. But how serious is the problem really? And what can be done to help men adjust to their new reality?
It's a little taboo for men to even talk about the impact of their female partner becoming the breadwinner. They might feel supportive of their partner's career, whilst at the same time feeling that they aren't fulfilling their role as "breadwinners" because many outdated assumptions of masculinity remain prevalent.
This is especially true when men inadvertently become stay-at-home fathers due to job loss or relocation, rather than choice. Harry Bunton, an ex-consultant and now rising social media influencer based in Sydney, Australia, recently lost his job. He posted on social media afterwards to thousands that his "values as a man, husband and father" were impacted.
"It makes sense to me why there's such a high rate of depression, and worse, in that population. When things don't go to plan it can be really devastating and can really challenge your ideas of what it means to be a man," Bunton wrote. "My hope is that sharing this story is that people can identify with it and their value isn't predicated on events like this… I feel almost empowered to be the dad that I want to be."
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As a reader of this newsletter you’ll already know that Breadwinners is out in August 2025 and available to pre order now - if you are interested in reading it, please consider a pre-order it for less than a round in a pub, to please the algorithm and justify all these hours of research that went into it.