Relative Spousal Earnings and Marital Happiness Among African American and White Women

The distinctive economic histories of African American and White wives suggest that involvement in household income production holds contextually situated unique meanings for these groups. Yet research has not addressed racial differences in the effects of relative earnings on marital well-being. Surveying 431 employed wives in 21 U.S. cities, we found that wife-to-husband income ratio and marital happiness were negatively associated when women held traditional values, but in racially distinct ways. Among White women only, a negative association between income ratio and marital happiness was reversed when financial need was reported. Findings are discussed in terms of variability in the meaning of wives' earnings as a function of situational, historical, and sociocultural dynamics. Key Words: African Americans, culture/race/ethnicity, dualearner, family roles, satisfaction, survey research. Since 1963, U.S. women's incomes at all educational levels have steadily increased, with gains greatest for those with college degrees. In contrast, among men, only college graduates saw income increases, while earnings actually declined for those with less schooling (White & Rogers, 2000). These trends, coupled with increased economic demands on families, promote the growing prominence of wives in income production. In 25% of dual-earner marriages in 2003 wives had higher incomes than husbands, up from 16% in 1981 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005). Couple income disparities favoring wives are expected to increase as more women enter higher status occupations that have historically been dominated by men. The increased economic prominence of women, however, may complicate their well-being within marital relationships. There is some evidence that wives' increased share of couple earnings is associated with higher rates of marital dissolution and lower marital quality for women (e.g., Heckert, Nowak, & Snyder, 1998; Ono, 1998). Studies of wives as primary earners are still rare, however, and findings relating these circumstances to marital quality are mixed. The distinctive work history of African American women (Brown, 1999) suggests that spousal income dynamics may affect their marriages differently. African American women have played more significant economic roles within families for some time; hence an examination of income and relationship dynamics in African American marriages may aid us in understanding how sociohistorical context conditions marital relations. Few studies have examined racial variation in the impact of couple income ratios on relationship well-being, and no published studies have specifically examined the effect of female primary earnership on African American marital outcomes. In the present paper we examine the association between relative spousal income and marital happiness among both African American and White married women. Theory and Research The frequently observed incongruity between financial and emotional success in marriage among women has often been explained using theories of resource exchange, which contend that gender-based task specialization within marriage provides the most efficient system of exchange (Becker, 1981, 1985). As men historically have fared better in the labor market, couples relying on male earning capacity maximize their economic rewards; a woman's contribution is maximized through domestic work. Couples that do not adopt this gender-based specialization would be functionally disadvantaged in the economic and domestic spheres, leading potentially to lower marital quality. The relevance of this theory for today's dual-earner families has been called into question by recent research and conceptual debate (e.g., Oppenheimer, 1997; Sayer & Bianchi, 2000; Tichenor, 1999). The independence hypothesis, a derivative of exchange theory, states that when wives contribute income to families, the benefits from marriage are reduced (Oppenheimer, 1997) and if the wife's earnings are sufficient for economic independence, the risk of her departure from the marriage is increased. …