Study: Traditional Men Earn the Most

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Surely part of it is motivation, though? I could see conceivable reason why I would ever need to live in a household with an income of more than the equivalent of 250,000 USD a year today, and I would be willing to accept substantially lower salaries (as long as they were above a level of comfort that I see as being about 40,000 USD equivalent here today) in exchange for things like a 35-hour workweek, 3-months paid vacation, universal health care and other French-type benefits.

[Spin Echo]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

The problem is that they don't. Just looking at europe, the countries where the woman is expected to stay home and take care of the kids and house after marriage, large numbers of women are deciding that's not what they want, so they get married late or never. This has caused the birth rate to plummet to the unsustainable ~1 kid per woman. The countries where women are given support by society and gender equality measures have been taken, they have birth rates that are near sustainable. The traditional values might work if we return to a society where women have no option but to be housewives, but is that really something you would class as desireable?

I'd be curious to see this study performed in Scandinavia and see what the outcome of the results are.

[Covenant]

The point is, if people did want to do that, it works out well. It's much easier to have a situation where there's a division of labor, and one of the most obvious divisions is home/child maintenance duties for one person and all the out-of-house breadwinning for the other.

Now, if or if not it's desirable for the people involved is something else entirely. Happiness in practice and efficency in theory aren't the same thing. Not everyone is happy though, especially in those traditional families. And when one person is responsible for the entire family's income, and also taking on the role of the emotionally distant father figure, then there is less of a roadblock and a greater incentive to achieve high levels of financial success. Furthermore, these people are more likely to go into traditional jobs where you can negotiate for salary, and they are also more likely to be able to appeal to employers for higher pay simply because of their sole breadwinner status. These things are not lost on employers in salary negotiations for promotions, and so it's one more advantage in the old boy's network for getting that extra dollar.

[Spyder]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

And maybe picks his cotton...

Seriously, if both parties accept a situation then you could say that about a lot of different situations.

[Diomedes]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

The evidence doesnt seem to back that up. While every relationship is different, certain attitudes tend to be correlated with one another, and it seems that more traditional views of marriage and gender roles tend to be associated with decreased sexual satisfaction and overall happiness in the relationship.

Gender equality leads to better sex lives among people 40 and over

Older couples who live in Western countries and who enjoy more equality between men and women are most likely to report being satisfied with their sex lives, according to a new study on sexual well-being, aging and health that was conducted in 29 countries by a University of Chicago research team.

It seems that more egalitarian marriages are healthier:

Happy Marriages

"And family life is more egalitarian in terms of who is making the decisions," he adds. "Both husbands and wives are telling us this. In 1980, it was common for the husband to say he makes all the decisions. But when families reach decisions together, we've found, they're happier. Equality is good for a marriage. It's good for both husbands and wives. If the wife goes from a patriarchal marriage to an egalitarian one, she'll be much happier, much less likely to look for a way out. And in the long run, the husbands are happier too."

Now, half of this page is religious bullshit, but the article cites a number of interesting statistics and studies.

Support for egalitarian marriage

Drs. Alan Booth and Paul Amato, Penn State sociologists and demographers agree that egalitarian marriages are happier. They interviewed and followed the lives of two thousand men and women and some of their children over a 20 year period between 1980 and 2000. The subject individuals were personally contacted six times each year during the twenty year study. In the year 2000, at the conclusion of their twenty year study, the research team interviewed an entirely new random sample of 2,100 married couples. Amato explains, "So we can look at two different kinds of changes: how individual marriages change over time, and how the population of married couples has changed between 1980 and 2000." Dr. Amato makes this conclusion: Equality is good for a marriage. It's good for both husbands and wives. If the wife goes from a patriarchal marriage to an egalitarian one, she'll be much happier, much less likely to look for a way out. And in the long run, the husbands are happier too. While some traditionalists may argue that working wives cause divorce, Dr. Booth refutes this notion. Based on the results of this long study he says emphatically that "women working does not cause divorce."[16]

Dr. David H. Olson, Professor Emeritus, Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, compiled a national survey based on 21,501 married couples using a comprehensive marital assessment tool called ENRICH. This national survey, published in the year 2000, represents one of the largest and most comprehensive analyses of martial strengths and stumbling blocks. Couples were asked to complete 30 background questions and 165 specific questions that focused on 20 significant marital issues. This survey identified the top ten strengths of happy marriages and the top ten stumbling blocks for married couples. This data is summarized in the attached Appendix. Using these top ten strengths, it is possible to discriminate between happy and unhappy marriages with 93% accuracy.

A significant discovery was made in relation to marital satisfaction and role relationships. It discovered that (81%) of equalitarian (egalitarian) couples were happily married, while (82%) of couples where both spouses perceived their relationship as traditional (hierarchical) were mainly unhappy.[17]

It also cites evidence that wives in traditional marriages are significantly more likely to suffer from depression and mental illness. Now, I know there was one study in the news a few years ago claiming that wives in traditional roles are happier, but the sheer weight of evidence supporting the reverse indicates that that study is an outlier not to be trusted. In fact it's discussed here, along with further discussion of the evidence in favour of ewgalitarian marriages and working wives being happier:

Women Happier as Homemakers? Time to Recheck Data

Sociologists Elaine Wethington (Cornell University) and Ronald Kessler (Harvard Medical School) found that women who were homemakers at the beginning of their three-year study and then went to work full time reported a decrease in psychological distress. In contrast, women who were employed full time and then dropped out to stay home reported an increase in distress, regardless if they had children. Women who had a child but stayed in the work force showed no increase in distress. But women who had a child and dropped out of the work force experienced a major increase in stress.

Of course there may be perfectly happy marriages with traditional gender roles, but it seems that they'd be the exception. Unless the amount a husband earns is the most important yardstick of marital success, it doesnt seem at all that things "work out better for everyone".

[Darth Wong]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

The problem is that they don't. Just looking at europe, the countries where the woman is expected to stay home and take care of the kids and house after marriage, large numbers of women are deciding that's not what they want, so they get married late or never.

You are mixing two separate propositions together. I am talking about couples where both partners agree that this is what they want, not couples where the woman is pressured into doing this against her will and her own preferences. Believe it or not, plenty of women try the career thing and the mother thing and actually decide of their own free will to stay at home because they're happier that way.

The traditional values might work if we return to a society where women have no option but to be housewives, but is that really something you would class as desireable?

This would be a lot easier if you didn't invent other peoples' arguments for them while totally ignoring what they're actually saying.

[Darth Wong]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

The evidence doesnt seem to back that up. While every relationship is different, certain attitudes tend to be correlated with one another, and it seems that more traditional views of marriage and gender roles tend to be associated with decreased sexual satisfaction and overall happiness in the relationship.

See my above post to Spin Echo. You are confusing two separate issues: it is quite possible for a marriage to be egalitarian in terms of power and decision-making, yet the woman actually decides to stay home and take care of the kids.

Frankly, attitudes like yours are insulting and demeaning to all stay-at-home mothers. With no evidence whatsoever, you assume that a stay-at-home mother is weak and submissive, doing her husband's wishes and having no say over what happens in the marriage.

[Broomstick]

Clarify how you define "success" in a marriage. OK, "traditional" families have more money... but egalitarians report being happier and having better sex. Well, which is more important to you, money or sex?

Not everyone has "make as much money as possible" as a life goal.

[Yogi]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

Yes, that's sexist. No, it certainly doesn't excuse domineering husbands who think their wives owe them something for being the breadwinner. And no, I don't know how well it works if the roles are reversed; I don't intend to make statements that go outside the scope of what I'm saying, which is simply that the fixed arrangement works pretty well. And I would argue that the reason it works well is simple: specialization.

Ever heard of the old phrase "jack of all trades, master of none"? We've all gotten this idea in our heads in the last 30 years that everything should be equal. But if you went to a factory and said that everyone should randomly change positions and do everyone else's job every other week, people would say you're an idiot. You can do better at a particular task if you are allowed to focus on it. That works for both professional tasks and domestic tasks.

Now obviously, if the woman hates that role, then some accomodation should be made. But there's nothing wrong with the idea of specialization; that's why genders evolved in the first place, for fuck's sake. That's how virtually all of society functions outside of marriages, where "egalitarian" suddenly means "no one is better at anything than anyone else".

This worked out a lot better in the past, where "taking care of the house" was essentially a full time job itself. Now with all of our new labor saving devices, unless the house is huge or the housewife is a tad obsessive, it doesn't take an entire day to make sure the house is clean.

In addition, the "specialization" argument operates on the fundamental assumption that the couple will be together on a permanent basis, and can therefore specialize into individual roles. However, in the event that the marriage is broken (due to death, divorce, etc.) the career person can still have a life and be financially secure, while the stay at home person gets the short end of the bargain. This was one of the things my mother was unhappy about since she quit her career to be a stay at home mom (of her own free will) then found that she had lost a lot of her freedom.

If the man can leave the relationship whenever he wants to and the woman can't, then it's not exactly "egalitarian in terms of power and decision-making"

[Darth Wong]

This worked out a lot better in the past, where "taking care of the house" was essentially a full time job itself. Now with all of our new labor saving devices, unless the house is huge or the housewife is a tad obsessive, it doesn't take an entire day to make sure the house is clean.

It does, however, take an entire day to take care of a pre-school kid.

In addition, the "specialization" argument operates on the fundamental assumption that the couple will be together on a permanent basis, and can therefore specialize into individual roles.

That's why it's called "marriage", not "temporary living arrangement".

However, in the event that the marriage is broken (due to death, divorce, etc.) the career person can still have a life and be financially secure, while the stay at home person gets the short end of the bargain. This was one of the things my mother was unhappy about since she quit her career to be a stay at home mom (of her own free will) then found that she had lost a lot of her freedom.

And there are mothers who are deeply unhappy about having chosen the career path and then realizing years later that they can never go back and be real mothers again. What's your point? Every decision in life carries risks and rewards.

If the man can leave the relationship whenever he wants to and the woman can't, then it's not exactly "egalitarian in terms of power and decision-making"

On the contrary, our society is increasingly accepting of women rejoining the work force after having taken an extended hiatus to raise kids.

[Darth Wong]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

And maybe picks his cotton...

Seriously, if both parties accept a situation then you could say that about a lot of different situations.

Really! So any time a woman decides she would be happier staying home and putting her career on hold, you assume that the situation is akin to slavery and she would accept "a lot of different situations"? Just how awful, demeaning, horrifying, and subhuman do you think the job of mothering is?

I love the way I actually made a point of saying that this would not be a good idea if it goes against the mother's will, but a bunch of people read the first two sentences of my post and immediately knee-jerked. Way to go, morons. It's not as if you're proving the stereotypes of knee-jerk feminists correct or anything.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I actually understand what Darth Wong is saying, and i think people are really misunderstanding this. It's really simple and i cant imagine people misunderstand it by accident, frankly.

He means that, it's entirely possible and indeed probable that some women may, in fact, enjoy beinga "homemaker" (or stay at home mom or whatever you want to call it) than a career woman, not because she's a slave (way to strawman there Spyder ) but because she...just decides to. And that this situation may in fact be somewhat more functional on the level of job specialization. That's what i got from it anyway.


There is really nothing offensive or objectible to this, and while you may not entirely agree (me i dont care either way) it's a perfectly logical standpoint. To be honest i see a lot of knee-jerking here that is really retarded. A lot of strawmaning too frankly. "Some people don't have make as much money as possible as a life goal", yeah cause i'm sure that's EXACTLY what Darth Wong meant *I'm a smarmy asshole*.

[Big Phil]

Surely part of it is motivation, though? I could see conceivable reason why I would ever need to live in a household with an income of more than the equivalent of 250,000 USD a year today, and I would be willing to accept substantially lower salaries (as long as they were above a level of comfort that I see as being about 40,000 USD equivalent here today) in exchange for things like a 35-hour workweek, 3-months paid vacation, universal health care and other French-type benefits.

I think Duchess nailed it on the first try; traditional males have a motivation to make more money, while egalitarian males know that their counterparts are pulling their own weight (in terms of income) and don't have the same motivation.

[Spin Echo]

OK, I'm going to throw away the political correctness here and be honest: if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone. The guy makes the money, the girl raises the kids and takes care of the house.

The problem is that they don't. Just looking at europe, the countries where the woman is expected to stay home and take care of the kids and house after marriage, large numbers of women are deciding that's not what they want, so they get married late or never.

You are mixing two separate propositions together. I am talking about couples where both partners agree that this is what they want, not couples where the woman is pressured into doing this against her will and her own preferences. Believe it or not, plenty of women try the career thing and the mother thing and actually decide of their own free will to stay at home because they're happier that way.

Then I don't get your point. Obviously if the guy believes men should work and the women stay home, and the girl believes should men work and women stay at home, it's going to work out better for them if they take on traditional gender roles.

Also, I think you should have been a bit more careful with the term "everyone" if you meant for a particular couple. I think a lot of confusion could have been avoided if you had used more specific terms.

[Oskuro]

I think this is going off a tangent now. I understand Darth Wong's argument, and agree with it, although I'd like to point out that it should be able to work in reverse, with stay-at-home dads, wich brings us back to the point that the ones earning more money, as per the OP, are traditional males, thus making it harder for alternate situations, be it an stay-at-home dad, or a couple where both need to work, as it is commonplace around here lately.

The whole concept of equality should be about oportunities, not about capabilities, and when people are forced into an specific model without the option of making their own choice, then we have a problem.

I also agree with the notion that aggresive negotiatiors get better salaries, but the sad part is that, in general, equally aggressive women get lower salaries than equally aggressive men, so there's still a big issue of sexism here.

[Surlethe]

The problem is that they don't. Just looking at europe, the countries where the woman is expected to stay home and take care of the kids and house after marriage, large numbers of women are deciding that's not what they want, so they get married late or never.

You are mixing two separate propositions together. I am talking about couples where both partners agree that this is what they want, not couples where the woman is pressured into doing this against her will and her own preferences. Believe it or not, plenty of women try the career thing and the mother thing and actually decide of their own free will to stay at home because they're happier that way.

Then I don't get your point. Obviously if the guy believes men should work and the women stay home, and the girl believes should men work and women stay at home, it's going to work out better for them if they take on traditional gender roles.

I don't think he's making it universal; even if the guy and gal don't believe men should always work and the woman should always stay at home, they may personally choose to split the duties in their marriage that way. If they do, then by specializing they're probably better off than if they both work. I think that's all he's saying.

[Darth Wong]

You are mixing two separate propositions together. I am talking about couples where both partners agree that this is what they want, not couples where the woman is pressured into doing this against her will and her own preferences. Believe it or not, plenty of women try the career thing and the mother thing and actually decide of their own free will to stay at home because they're happier that way.

Then I don't get your point. Obviously if the guy believes men should work and the women stay home, and the girl believes should men work and women stay at home, it's going to work out better for them if they take on traditional gender roles.

They don't have to believe that all men should work and all women should stay home. They only need to believe that this will work out better for their own family, based on the "specialized division of labour" principle that we know to work well in every other sphere of human activity. I'm simply pointing out that there are more reasons than simple social reactionism to adopt this model, contrary to your knee-jerk reaction. And like it or not, the "specialized division of labour" argument does apply to everyone, although it doesn't mean you can force someone to take a position he or she doesn't want to take (which also applies to the industrial work force).

Also, I think you should have been a bit more careful with the term "everyone" if you meant for a particular couple. I think a lot of confusion could have been avoided if you had used more specific terms.

That's why I used the word "if" to describe a conditional, as in "conditional upon both people actually wanting to do this", which I even took pains to repeat and elaborate on later on in my message in case someone didn't get it. Should I have spelled it out in crayon, in order to prevent feminist knee-jerking? Did you need diagrams?

[Darth Wong]

As for the original study, what makes it unusual is that they're looking at social attitudes rather than practices, which is a bit different from the tangent we're on about actual practices and the wisdom of such practices.

It is quite possible for a man to have very traditional views of gender roles even though his wife has a job (I've known plenty of men like this), or for a man to have very modern views of gender roles even though his wife stays at home and raises the kids.

It would be interesting to learn more about how the study was conducted. A number of hypotheses were raised earlier in the thread to explain the disparity, but one would need to take a close look at it to see which variables they tried to compensate for and which ones they didn't.

[Surlethe]

The study was published starting on page 994 of volume 93, issue 5 of the Journal of Applied Psychology. It doesn't seem to be available through my university's online journal access, else I'd find it and post it.

[Spin Echo]

Also, I think you should have been a bit more careful with the term "everyone" if you meant for a particular couple. I think a lot of confusion could have been avoided if you had used more specific terms.

That's why I used the word "if" to describe a conditional, as in "conditional upon both people actually wanting to do this", which I even took pains to repeat and elaborate on later on in my message in case someone didn't get it. Should I have spelled it out in crayon, in order to prevent feminist knee-jerking? Did you need diagrams?

The if was part of the problem. The second part of the sentence can easily be parsed as "if only those women would be happy staying at home, everything would be better for every one", which is why I and several other posters were left scratchi g our heads and wondering this morning "When did Darth Wong decide that women belonged in the kitchen". The fact you followed it by "I don't care if it's sexist." only compounded the misunderstanding. If both people want the woman to stay home and take care of the kid, why is it sexist?

Also, don't put words in my mouth about thinking that women that choose to stay home being forced into it. All I said is that when women in first world nations are in a society where they have to choose between family and career, a significant number will choose career and the only way you will avoid that effect is to not give them the choice at all.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Is it possible that we're confusing cause and effect here? Perhaps being wealthy causes men to have traditional views of gender relationships, and not the other way around.

I mean, if you're spending huge amounts of your time accumulating excessive wealth, you probably like the feeling of being better than other people (by having more money). So maybe those rich people who like to feel better than other people who have less money then them also like to feel better than women.

[Diomedes]

The evidence doesnt seem to back that up. While every relationship is different, certain attitudes tend to be correlated with one another, and it seems that more traditional views of marriage and gender roles tend to be associated with decreased sexual satisfaction and overall happiness in the relationship.

See my above post to Spin Echo. You are confusing two separate issues: it is quite possible for a marriage to be egalitarian in terms of power and decision-making, yet the woman actually decides to stay home and take care of the kids.

For reasons Spin Echo has already outlined, if there's any confusion over your meaning it's due to the way you presented it. You admit that your position is sexist, yet if a couple decides they'd like to choose specialised roles in the relationship without societal or spousal coercion, there doesnt seem to be anything sexist about that. Throwing in that you're "throwing away political correctness" also encourages a stronger interpretation of your argument, rather than the weaker claim you're making now.

The most straightforward interpretation of your claim (especially after priming it with "throwing out PC") that "if everyone concerned is willing to accept traditional gender roles, they work out better for everyone" is not that it's simpy best for those couples who choose or prefer it, but that if everyone accepted that relationship dynamic they would have better or more functional marriages in some way.

If your claim truly is simply the weaker one that, for some couples who both choose and prefer specialisation, that they will be happier if they act in accordance with their preferences, it seems like a fairly pointless claim to make (I'm sure most people would agree that most of the time people will be happier doing what they prefer, or would be happier doing what they do if they choose and preferred it). And if that is the extent of your claim, you have to admit that the source of confusion is in your own presentation of it.

Frankly, attitudes like yours are insulting and demeaning to all stay-at-home mothers. With no evidence whatsoever, you assume that a stay-at-home mother is weak and submissive, doing her husband's wishes and having no say over what happens in the marriage.

You're obviously trying to go on the offensive here but it's not going to work. What I presented were societal trends aimed at an argument that seemed to be making a general recommendation regarding marriage, and you'll see that I added that traditional marriages can be happy ones - they're just less likely to be. A stay-at-home mother is more likely to be dominated by a bread-winning husband, more likely to be beaten, less likely to be happy or sexually satisfied, and that is evidenced. You accuse us of wrongly interpreting your specific and situational claim as a general or universal one - dont go and then wrongly interpret my general claim about trends and correlations to be universal.

[Diomedes]

Is it possible that we're confusing cause and effect here? Perhaps being wealthy causes men to have traditional views of gender relationships, and not the other way around.

I mean, if you're spending huge amounts of your time accumulating excessive wealth, you probably like the feeling of being better than other people (by having more money). So maybe those rich people who like to feel better than other people who have less money then them also like to feel better than women.

Perhaps the detrimental effect on happyness and marital stability correlated with traditional gender roles causes men to stay for longer hours at work rather than go home to their malcontent wives

[Darth Wong]

Also, I think you should have been a bit more careful with the term "everyone" if you meant for a particular couple. I think a lot of confusion could have been avoided if you had used more specific terms.

That's why I used the word "if" to describe a conditional, as in "conditional upon both people actually wanting to do this", which I even took pains to repeat and elaborate on later on in my message in case someone didn't get it. Should I have spelled it out in crayon, in order to prevent feminist knee-jerking? Did you need diagrams?

The if was part of the problem. The second part of the sentence can easily be parsed as "if only those women would be happy staying at home, everything would be better for every one", which is why I and several other posters were left scratchi g our heads and wondering this morning "When did Darth Wong decide that women belonged in the kitchen". The fact you followed it by "I don't care if it's sexist." only compounded the misunderstanding. If both people want the woman to stay home and take care of the kid, why is it sexist?

Ah, I see. Hyper-analysis of the precise wording of the sentence in question, even though I made a point later in the same post of clarifying that it would NOT be a good idea if the woman doesn't want to do it. Classic knee-jerker syndrome: you really did stop after reading the first two sentences, didn't you?

Also, don't put words in my mouth about thinking that women that choose to stay home being forced into it.

I attributed your argument to that mindset because I didn't realize you were honestly too fucking lazy to read an entire post before responding to it, so I figured that must be the reason for your objection.

All I said is that when women in first world nations are in a society where they have to choose between family and career, a significant number will choose career and the only way you will avoid that effect is to not give them the choice at all.

Funny how you complain that I'm falsely accusing you of equating my argument to coercion and then immediately do it again, by assuming that I'm talking about coercion. Like it or not, the "dual-income for everyone" model is not beneficial for society as a whole. It works fine once the kids are older, but in the early childhood years, it's a fucking disaster. I don't need to try and force change on other people in order to say that it's not beneficial for society.

[Diomedes]

That's why I used the word "if" to describe a conditional, as in "conditional upon both people actually wanting to do this", which I even took pains to repeat and elaborate on later on in my message in case someone didn't get it. Should I have spelled it out in crayon, in order to prevent feminist knee-jerking? Did you need diagrams?

So for the record, your argument can essentially be summarised as this:

"If everyone wanted to specialise according to traditional gender roles, everyone would be better off if they specialised according to traditional gender roles."

That's a bit like me saying "If the sky were red, it would be red". If your claim was really that limited, firstly, why did you bother posting it at all, and secondly, why did you preface it with "throwing out PC" and admit that your position was sexist? How is the position you're claiming now sexist?

Like it or not, the "dual-income for everyone" model is not beneficial for society as a whole. It works fine once the kids are older, but in the early childhood years, it's a fucking disaster. I don't need to try and force change on other people in order to say that it's not beneficial for society.

This seems like a further weakening of your claim, but in any case, some of the evidence I presented indicates that dropping out of the workforce once having kids increases psychological distress in women, while staying in the workforce after having a child does not. That doesnt tell us much about how it is for the kids, but it does indicate that it's a mixed bag at best.