The Richer Sex

Rapidly changing economic conditions are combining to cook up a new recipe for just who are the family breadwinners and who are the family bread makers. In what is being called the big flip, women are assuming the top family wage earning position long held by men. Currently, females are bringing in the higher salary in 40 percent of all American families and experts say that figure will exceed 50 percent in less than 20 years.

In her new book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family, author Liza Mundy examines both the causes and effects of the big flip and today she appeared at the Newseum to discuss her findings.

Mundy believes the change will prove to be beneficial for both women and men. "I try to argue in my book that this is a good thing," Mundy said.

As recently as 150 years, American women couldn't even hold property, meaning that marriage was "really the only path open to a women to be successful economically," Mundy said. Until the 1980s, men dominated the economic picture in almost all families.

However, that picture is changing. Part of the shift is happening because the number of college educated women is growing. Today, women make up 57% of all college students, and, as is noted in studies, college graduates can expect to earn substantially more income. "For women, that payoff is starting to show up in their paychecks," Mundy said.

At the same time, high-paying industrial jobs that were once almost the sole province of males are rapidly disappearing. "Those high paying jobs that you could get with just a high school diploma just aren't there like they used to be," the author said.


However, as with all changes, there are downsides. Some experts claim that men "will fall off the rails if they don't have the pressure to provide." Mundy said new studies show many young men are more directionless these days, showing "to a certain extent this might be true."

And now, this "really super-charged generation of young women" are finding that their higher salaries are creating a new set of problems for them. In dating, for example, many women find they are too intimidating and are overshadowing the men they are meeting. Many underplay their job or simply "laugh and lie and just say we're cosmetologists,"Mundy reported.

In the book, one woman found it difficult to accept some of the conditions that come with role reversals. "It's difficult to be the distant parent," she told Mundy. "When we go to back-to-school nights, he's Danny (to the teachers) and I'm Mrs. Hawkins."

Other women are hesitant to discuss salary discrepancies between their spouses and themselves for fear that they will stigmatize their husbands, Mundy said.

Responding to questions, Mundy said that while the book focuses on the American experience, the big flip appears to be happening in almost all modern countries.  The situation is particularly acute in countries with formalized traditional roles for men and women such as Japan or Spain. In Japan, for example, men who want a traditional Japanese relationship with women are importing wives from less industrialized Asian nations like Vietnam. "It's a genuine crisis for men and women," Mundy said. "Many Japanese women are convinced they will be a single woman for life."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
As any regular reader of this blog knows, we are big fans of the Newseum. And apparently we are not alone. Despite the fact that Washington is filled with free museums and monuments, the Newseum was recently rated 4th best of 212 DC attractions by the popular travel website TripAdvisor. You can check out the Newseum results by clicking here.