Super rich: women tend to be stay-at-home mothers. Why?
Welcome to the bi-weekly update (#184) where we dive deeper into key topics, themes or issues specific to women and their lived experience.
Based on 30 years of data from 1989 to 2019, from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, men are the sole breadwinners in over half of super rich heterosexual couples – defined as those in the top 1% of households, (as reported by The Conversation).
The research found that in 2019:
53% of super rich heterosexual couples had arrangements in which the woman was not gainfully employed (circa $17.6m median wealth)
Compared with 27% of rich couples (circa $2.3m median wealth)
Versus 20% of upper-middle-class couples (circa $796,000 median wealth)
And 26% of less affluent couples (circa $67,000 median wealth).
Why does it matter?
Whilst a woman’s income may become less consequential to overall household finances if her husband earns an extremely high income, the absence of women at the top of the economic ladder has many implications:
Super rich men continue to exercise substantial power in the workplace and in politics, whilst the wealthiest married women leave the workplace and/or public life.
Previous research that men with stay-at-home wives are less supportive of women in their own workplaces, including being less likely to promote them.
Therefore powerful male leaders in the workplace or politics are less likely to support women in the workplace and in politics.
It’s possible..
…that women leave the workplace because their income is simply no longer needed. However, it’s also possible that men’s economic success is enabled by their wife’s unpaid labour.
Demanding jobs which require men to be away from home for extended periods of time, to be on call 24/7 and which are often incompatible with raising a young family, might not otherwise be possible.
In this situation, a man’s financial success may be highly contingent on his wife stepping back from her own career ambitions (as well as being an important status symbol).
The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2023 & All Rights Reserved.
The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.