Economic and social changes, too, are requiring couples to be more flexible about gender roles. More and more, both partners must produce income to support the family. As a result, men are finding that a wife with many skills can help support the family. The need for women to earn income has changed gender roles. In the US some husbands and wives are arranging to work different hours, and more men are caring for the children.
Some men find that they have gained through improvements in their wives' status.
The women and their husbands have worked together to make their enterprises succeed and to take care of their homes. Both husbands and wives said that they benefited from the project. The women became more self-confident and knowledgeable about dealing with local institutions such as schools and markets. In Zimbabwe and other areas of Africa, husbands report that their wives' employment as family planning field workers enhanced the prestige of their family. Some men may see that, in the future, their daughters will need to be more self-sufficient than their mothers were.