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Over the past few decades, more and more women have started to out-earn men. In the US, for example, the proportion of wives who earn more than their husbands has climbed from 12 to 28 per cent since 1980. Now a study of data from the US suggests that married heterosexual men feel most comfortable when they earn 50 per cent more than their wives.

Joanna Syrda at the University of Bath in the UK analysed data from a US survey of more than 6000 married heterosexual couples that included questions about income and emotional well-being.

She found that men tended to be unhappier when their wives earned more than them, becoming gradually more so as their wives鈥� earnings grew relative to their own. This was unrelated to total household income, the amount of housework the men did, or the hours their wives worked.

Men who were sole breadwinners were also at the unhappier end of the spectrum, probably due to the stress of supporting their families on their own, but they weren鈥檛 as unhappy as men who earned less than their wives.

The men who were happiest were those who earned 60 per cent of their households鈥� total income and whose wives earned 40 per cent. This is probably the sweet spot at which wives earn enough money to minimise financial strain on their families without challenging the traditional stereotype of the male breadwinner, says Syrda.

鈥淭he male breadwinner identity 鈥� the idea that a man must take care of his family 鈥� has been incredibly durable despite many other changes to gender norms,鈥� says Syrda. 鈥淭hese findings show that it can actually be harmful to men鈥檚 mental health because they feel emasculated if their wives earn more than them.鈥�

Nicholas Haslam at the University of Melbourne in Australia agrees. 鈥淓ven if men think they鈥檙e beyond all of this sexist stuff, very often they鈥檙e not and it still bothers them to earn less,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he fact that men are happiest when women earn two-thirds what they do shows we have a long way to go to reach equality.鈥�

Less threatened

However, not all men feel the same way, says Syrda. Her analysis found that men whose wives earned more than them when they first married didn鈥檛 experience the same discomfort. This is probably because men who choose to pair up with high-earning women feel less threatened by female success to begin with, she says.

The way happiness was measured in the study 鈥� by asking respondents how often they felt sad, nervous, restless, hopeless, worthless and like everything was an effort in the past 30 days 鈥� was fairly crude, says Haslam. However, it still provided a useful snapshot of general well-being, he says.

Haslam predicts that men should become increasingly comfortable with having higher-earning wives in the future as gender equality increases. 鈥淎s more and more women earn more than their husbands, it will probably become less stigmatised and people won鈥檛 notice it as much and won鈥檛 care about it as much,鈥� he says.

Syrda now wants to compare how women鈥檚 well-being is affected by male partners鈥� relative earnings. She predicts they are more likely to prefer a 50:50 earnings split with their partners, but still needs to analyse the data to test this. She also plans to compare how income differences affect people in same-sex couples.