[Translation: Correlation does not equal causation.]
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2024-11-11
Oh for fucks sake. No wonder this study is ridiculous. It's an economist trying to make inferences on mental health. The only actual data he had is a correlation in mental health diagnoses and women earning significantly* more. (Number not defined)
He has no evidence for causation. He does no work to get rid of confounding factors like toxic masculinity's famous dislike of therapy. He just sees a rise in the pure number of diagnoses and says women earning more is bad for the mental health of both people in a marriage. He doesn't even bother to check what the diagnoses are, or look for any kind of severity. For all we know the finding here could be that women who earn more and men who are willing to be with them seek counseling earlier than couples where the man makes more.
This is shit science.
Yep. The guy got a large publicly available dataset (or one his university had access to) and mined it for interesting results to get a publication.
Perhaps households where women earn more money are also made of people where the male partner feels more comfortable seeking mental health resources. Or perhaps they have better insurance and can afford it.
I would suggest that "Wives earning more than husbands" isn't the issue so much as "Cost of living is outpacing household earnings and men have been conditioned through generations of patriarchy to believe this is a personal failing rather than a broad economic shift".
If your wife is bringing in seven figures, I doubt the husband will lose much sleep. But if you're looking at a $30k paycheck to your wife's $40k paycheck, and you both acknowledge the total isn't enough to live on, there's a lot of anxiety to go around in that situation.
Agreed. I don't think it's about wives earning more than their husbands at all.
Please Lord let me find a woman that makes the same as me and I'll happily retire a Pinterest mom and support her career. I love my kid, my home, my time, my flexibility, optimizing systems with cart blanche..
Yes, the link is this:
When all the adults in the household have to work 40+ hours a week, plus commute, plus all the adulting...they get sad since this is fucking toxic.
Also no one has time for civics.
Also no one has time to parent, so the kids are sad too.
If we're looking at mental health problems, lets look here first.
Was talking to a cute girl at a New Years Eve party, and it came out that while I made a nice amount for doing very little work, she made even more but had to do a lot of work. I went straight to daydreaming about being a stay-at-home Dad so hard I almost fell off my chair.
Dudes, more money means more money, why on earth would having more money upset you???
I'm willing to bet it's selection bias. They have more time for therapy and openness to the idea. It's one of those studies that just looks at the numbers at the top of everything. X couples got divorced, Y people sought counseling, etc.
The most they can say is there's an increased correlation in seeking mental help.
more money is not the goal of a long term relationship or at least, ought not be. I hope this person had other attractive qualities in addition to freeing you from working.
well, I mean, she was a cute girl with a steady job, so, already got one up on the ol' ex 🤷♂️
I've experienced a man in my life being really fucking salty and super dickish about my successful career. It isn't a husband or SO, but my stepfather. The man who, until recently, has been a great father figure.
I can't talk about work around him without his mood immediately souring. Idk if he's jealous that I have some disposable income and that I am making a little less than he is and I'm only 3 years into my career as opposed to his 25, but it's really discouraging.
Finances are very tight for him and my mother and it's almost entirely his fault because he is terrible with money. It's really sad to see him act this way. According to my mom, he has bitched to my grandma (his mom) about me taking up horseback riding and doing things with my new friends because it can be expensive. My grandma yelled at him over it and said that me doing new things and socializing is very good and she supports it. Idk why he thinks my finances are his business either. Ugh. The man is so frustrating.
Sorry for ranting. Guess I really needed to get all that out lol.
Well I hope there was some catharsis to your comment! That sucks you're being subjected to it. Good for grandma having your back!
Any chance this correlates with finally being able to afford mental health care?
Why is there an increase in mental health diagnoses recently?
Looks around at the state of the world. Tyranny on the rise; human right being violated across the globe; climate crisis set to boil humanity alive; tech companies funding dictators.
My hypothesis is that it is the fault of women.
It certainly doesn't help that men and women are more adversarial than they have ever been. The cause may be just, but at the end of the day everyone is just lonely and miserable, and afraid of the other.
Society needs to normalize households women being successful.
My only problem with this personally is what if something terrible happens and the wife is no longer in the picture. Then, my house husband skills wouldn’t help me land a decent paying job.
Welcome to the reality of every stay at home mom ever
I wanna be a house husband so bad yo I'd be so good at it I can cook and clean good enough to please anyone's grandma and I can manage a household like a pro
Lemme stop working lemme decorate a fucking great room and meal prep for my loved ones FUCK
My wife easily does 80% or more of the housework. She makes less than half what I do. The thing is, she only works 40 hours or so a week compared to my 60 or so. I'm not glorifying my overwork, I hate that I work so much. I'm also out of town during the week days more than half the time.
I would be thrilled if she made more than me. We could hire a cleaning service and we would be so happy. This shit is insane and probably bad science.
It keeps coming up and 'experts' profess this occasionally. I'm too lazy to check the actual science, so I'll never know.
This is really sad, tbh.
I personally would be freaking stoked. Would love to be a stay at home hubs, too.
It's genuinely upsetting. The option to be a house wife/husband is becoming rarer. Everyone needs to work to provide enough for the household. House hubbies are lucky men.
Dude, me too, and I would kill at it.
Sadly, based on skills and the job market where we're at, I can make more working.
Same. My skillset and interests align with being a house spouse, not making money. Single tho, and trying to make a beautiful home while working full time leads to many compromises
That's what we found out.
My wife enjoys her work, finds it rewarding, etc. etc. and has never been really content as a homemaker. My job is alright, but I don't feel any real passion for it, and I don't need a work atmosphere or to be around a lot of people to stay engaged. I'm happy just keeping things organized and running smoothly in my own little corner of the world.
I make just a little less than we need for her to stay home, and she makes peanuts in comparison.
It really hacks me off. She works in education, what she does is far more important to the well-being of society than what I do. If our paychecks were reversed, and they honestly should be reversed, I'd be happy to stay home or work part time but it's just not financially feasible.
i want my wife to earn more than me; she sure deserves it. she has a higher education and a job that actually matters to humanity. i have a desk job that makes computers go beep. its absurd how low her pay is :(
For men, mental health issues that arose as female earnings increased were more likely to be related to substance-related concerns, whereas women were more likely to experience neurotic and stress-related disorders.
I'm not convinced of a causative relationship here (well, at least for the men, it makes sense that working more increases stress on the women's side). It's possible that the woman became the higher earner because of the man's existing substance abuse problem, and/or that the woman becoming a higher earner allowed the man to seek help for the problem.
It's also possible that the substance abuse problem developed after the woman became the higher earner, though I'm not sure why that would happen.
Yeah correlation is not causation.
These couples might both work more than the control cohort. Any number of explanations.
Remember, this is diagnoses. My guess is that its a "owning a horse make you healthier" thing again.