Men's stress rises when their partner earns over 40% of the household income, study reveals

Men’s stress increases when their wife or partner earns anything over 40 per cent of the household income, a study has found.

Men who are the sole breadwinners are also relatively unhappy but they were not as stressed as men whose partners were the principal earners, according to the analysis of more than 6,000 married or cohahibiting heterosexual couples over 15 years.

“Neither of the extreme scenarios is good for male mental health,” said researcher Dr Joanna Syrda, of Bath University, whose study is published in the peer-reviewed personality and social psychology bulletin.

The exception is men who knowingly partner with a high-earning woman. “If the woman was the higher earner before marriage, then the potential income gap was already clear to the man, perhaps even a reason to partner with them,” said Dr Syrda, an assistant professor in business economics.

Statistics suggest that the proportion of married women outearning their husbands has risen from one in eight (13 per cent) in 1980 to a quarter in 2,000 and almost a third (31 per cent) in 2017.

The research showed that psychological distress steadily declined by almost 20 per cent between the point where man was the sole breadwinner to the “happiest” point when the woman earned 40 per cent of the household income.

It then rose sharply - by almost 40 per cent - as the woman overtook her partner or husband to eventually become the sole household earner.

Dr Syrda suggested that one reason why husbands might be stressed was the pressure of social convention of the “male breadwinner” which had been “highly durable in the past.”

“For generations, in many cultures, there has been an expectation that men will be the primary income provider in the family, and masculinity is highly linked to fulfilling this expectation,” she said.

“Faced with a change in this outcome by being outearned by their partners, means men are likely to experience high levels of psychological distress.”

There was also the risk of a “relationship imbalance.” “For example, if the relationship deteriorates significantly, the possibility of divorce or separation can make the lower earner feel more vulnerable, financially speaking,” added Dr Syrda.

“These effects are larger among cohabiting couples, possibly due to the higher probability of break up.

Even if breaking up is not on the cards, money that comes into the household predominantly through one partner also affects the balance of power.

“This is important if partners have a different view on what is best for their family, how much to save, what to spend their money on, and various plans and big decisions.”

She said she now planned to research women’s stress and experience of mis-matched earnings as well as the influence of particular types of family background.

This could mean that a man who came from a family where the mother was the bigger wage earner might suffer less stress when faced with a wife who out-earned them.

There was also evidence that the tensions from a woman earning more than the man in a household could deter her from continuing to work or seeking promotion, which then had a knock on effect on the gender pay gap.