Women are no longer the weak link in a coupleforced to depend economically on her husband. It often happens in a family that they earn as much as a man, sometimes even more, and yet they are always doing household chores: no separation of tasks, poor cooperation with a partner in managing the home and children. To say this is a new Pew Research Center report highlighting how the division of labor remains unfair even when wives earn more than their husbands.

From 1972 to 2022, the share of women as the main, if not the only, source of income has tripled, from 5% to 16%. During the same period, the percentage of “financially equal” marriages increased from 11% to 29%. Within these couples, the pay gap is negligible, with median annual earnings of $60,000 for women and $62,000 for men. This figure is also linked to the ever-increasing levels of women’s education, which have grown exponentially over the past 50 years. According to a 2019 Pew Research study that analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women aged 25 and over made up 50.2 percent of the college-educated workforce four years ago. An increase of approximately 11% since 2000.

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But higher education and high wages are not enough to free women from the responsibility of housekeeping.. Research has shown that for equal pay, men spend more time playing or entertaining (25.2 hours per week) than women, with an average of 21.6 hours. Then wives spend an average of 4.6 hours doing housework, compared to 1.9 hours for their husbands. And if there are children under 18, the situation becomes more complicated. It is estimated that women spend 12.2 hours a week on grooming compared to 9 hours for their husbands.

But how can this discrepancy be justified? The men in the family seem to find it hard to accept that their wives are paid the same or higher wages than theirs. This realization creates “emotional distress” for 48% of American husbands, who take out their frustration on their partners by demanding more free time for themselves. In this case, experts recommend healthy and constructive communication between spouses, both about money, which should always be a means, not an end, and about the distribution of caregiving responsibilities. This is the only way to enhance the role of women in society, which is nothing more than a large family.