When the Wife Brings Home the Bacon

Nov. 25, 2009— -- What happens when the wife becomes the breadwinner and Dad is left home to take care of the kids and clean the house?

The woman will probably feel like she is more in control and independent, but she will likely worry a lot and feel immense pressure, along with some guilt and resentment.

And the house probably won't be as clean as it was when Dad brought home the bacon.

That's the finding in a new study out of the University of Missouri which looks at the impact on the life of a wife who suddenly finds herself the breadwinner.

That's happening more and more these days. In nearly a third of U.S. families, the wife is now the primary or sole breadwinner, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the number is growing.

There have been many studies of the male side of that equation, but very few researchers have looked into the impact on the working wife, according to Rebecca Meisenbach, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Missouri, and author of a study in the current issue of the journal Sex Roles.

When she first started searching for wives to participate in the study, she discovered that most female breadwinners felt somewhat alone, seemingly unaware that many others share their fate.

"They felt isolated in that role," Meisenbach said in a telephone interview.

She finally rounded up 15 female breadwinners in 10 states and conducted lengthy interviews, and then re-interviewed them several times. The women in her study seem to be doing quite well in their unexpected roles, although life at home has become difficult for some of them. And the findings in the study will not apply to all female breadwinners.

The 15 women in the study are "highly ambitious, career driven, and they feel more pressure to perform well at work than when they were single and they weren't the breadwinner," Meisenbach said.

They are also well educated, some even holding doctorate degrees, and their jobs range from business executives to educators. So they may not be typical of female breadwinners, but their observations in Meisenbach's interviews sound pretty much like ordinary folk.