Dual earning affords both members of a couple opportunities to feel successful by fulfilling both home and work responsibilities. Traditionally, a breadwinner husband is successful when he financially supports his family and a homemaker wife is successful when she emotionally supports her family and takes care of their home. Presently, though this approach remains a common strategy, these couples are less likely to place a higher priority on the husband’s career and are more likely to take a variety of factors beyond gender into consideration.ĭual earner couples must redefine what their breadwinner/homemaker counterparts have already classified as measures of success. In the past, priority was almost always given to the husband’s career. Decisions that advance one member of the couple’s career may, at the same time, put the other’s career on hold. In addition to delaying children, some dual earner couples choose not to have children.ĭual earner couples frequently must decide whose career will receive a higher priority. Forty years later, the percentage of women with children in these age groups had declined to 33 and 55 percent, respectively (US Census Bureau 2002). In 1960, 60 percent of women aged 20 to 24 and three quarters of women aged 25 to 29 had become parents (White 1999). Dual earner couples are increasingly delaying having children until their career paths are established. Despite this diversity in experience, dual earner couples often encounter particular benefits, strains, and tensions as they integrate and balance two careers with a roman tic relationship and home life.ĭual earner couples often make decisions about when and whether to have children with the concerns of balancing two careers and a family in mind. For example, dual earner couples with young children face different rewards and challenges in balancing work and family than ‘‘empty nest’’ couples who are looking toward retirement (Moen 2003). The experiences associated with having two workers in the house hold also vary depending on one’s stage of life. They can be married with children, married without children, cohabitating heterosexual couples, or cohabiting same sex couples. Although women’s wages have risen over time, women still earn substantially less than men for nearly all occupations (US Census Bureau 2000).ĭual earner couples are diverse in their family situations and experiences. Women’s earnings have been extremely important in helping families maintain their standard of living, especially for working class and lower middle class couples (Bianchi & Spain 1996). Dual earner couples are more common in part because of the declining value of men’s wages. Today, however, advantaged women (such as middle class, white, married women) are increasingly likely to contribute to their family incomes. As a result, an increasing number of women provide significant financial support to their families (Gornick & Meyers 2003).įamilies with lower incomes have historically been more likely than those with middle or higher incomes to rely on the earnings of two workers. The influx of women into the workplace occurred for a number of reasons, including more equal access to education and occupations, greater demand for workers in the service sector of the economy, and social changes brought on by the women’s movement. These figures are significantly higher for women with school aged children and women who are not parents. For example, in 1976, 31 percent of women with infants under 1 year old worked outside the home by 2002, 54.6 percent did so (US Census Bureau 2002). The breadwinner homemaker model waned in prevalence as women entered the workforce in large numbers, especially after the 1950s. The presence of dual earner couples has increased over the last 40 years, as there has been a shift away from the traditional male breadwinner and female homemaker family type. Dual earner couples are romantically involved (either married or unmarried) and each contribute to the financial support of their household through their work outside the home.
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