Pitfalls of Dating Down

When talking about salaries on this blog, most of my time has been spent pondering the frustrating injustice of the gender pay gap. On average, women in this country earn only about 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. Unfair indeed.

We now have a different pay gap to examine.

Last Sunday, the New York Times explored Putting Money on the Table: With Rising Incomes, Young Women Discover the Pitfalls of
"Dating Down." Despite the odd placement in the Sunday Styles section (how does women's earning power qualify as style?), the revelations were fascinating. Young women are catching up -- indeed, surpassing, men. At least in New York. According to the article and another piece that ran in August, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.

The new pay gap is driven largely by a gulf in education, explains Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York. Over 50 percent of 20-something women who work full time have college degrees, compared with only 38 percent of men. This reminds me of a refrigerator magnet I saw two weeks ago: two elementary school girls smirking underneath the caption, "First, we get better grades than boys, then we take their jobs!"

Of course, I applaud these smart, hard-working young women. But there's an unintended side effect, says Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families. "One one hand, they're proud of their achievements, and they think they want a man who shares house chores and child care," she told the Times. "But on the other hand they're scared by their own achievements, and they're a little nervous having a man who won't be the main breadwinner."

The Times profiled the strategies employed by several young women who outearn the men in their dating pool. Dating older men, who are more likely to earn more, helps some. Minimizing their tax bracket and achievements works for others. Recognizing the inherent conflict of being a cultural vanguard works for a few.

What do you think? Do you outearn your boyfriend or husband? Have you faced this conflict of breadwinner vs. diaper-changer yourself? Men, do you earn more or less than your partner? Does it matter to you? What's your advice to women (and men) staring down this anti-stereotype?

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  October 1, 2007; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Conflicts , Moms in the News
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