No matter your age, if you are a woman with a higher salary than your spouse, you should be wary.
Today, a quarter of women have a higher salary than that of their spouse, against one in five in 2002. However, “in 2023, women civil servants working in a ministry are paid on average each month 435 euros gross less that men, a difference of -11.0 %. Ministry of Public Service. In ten years, INSEE has still identified a 4.7 -point drop in the remuneration gap between men and women.
This rather delightful decrease is unfortunately marred by the recent report of theNational Institute of Demographic Studies (INED). Led from a sample grouping data from nearly a million heterosexual couples, representative of the French population between January 2011 and January 2017, the study reports an “increased risk” of separation for women whose women Salary income is higher than that of their husband.
Whether they are married, PACS or in cohabitation, “couples in which the share of income brought by women is greater than 55% are more unstable than other couples, significantly”, indicates the report. In comparison with couples with equal income, the risk of separation is 11 to 40%higher. A constantly increasing figure among the lowest income.
The status of the couple can also have an influence on the risk of separation. Indeed, free union couples have a higher risk of separation than married or PACS. Conversely, “among PACS couples, the association between income differences and the risk of separation is less marked”. On the side of married couples, “stability is greater when man is the main financial support of the household”. Even young couples are concerned, it doesn’t matter whether they grew up or not with more egalitarian standards than previous generations.
Sociologists also observe that traditional standards are declining, but are also valued by reaction movements, including the rise of “tradwives”. Many women stage on social networks, doing household chores, giving cleaning techniques and cooking recipes. According to theNational Audiovisual Institute (INA), they defend a “stereotypical model of the 1950s housewife, entirely devoted to her family and especially to her husband”.
For Lucie Quillet, journalist specializing in women’s work, this movement is both “very dangerous for women and for men who do not have the right to get out of a very gendered score”. They are thus perceived as the providers of the family and their main financial support, even the only one. Another interpretation is given by the Institute: separation could be more possible for women in the event of conjugal dissatisfaction because they have the financial capacities of living without a spouse.