this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
153 points (82.6% liked)

science

15280 readers
49 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The study, conducted by Dr Demid Getik, explores how mental health is related to income make-up within couples by examining the link between annual income rises for women and the number of clinical mental health diagnoses over a set period of time.

The study finds that as more women take on the breadwinner role in the household, the number of mental health related incidences also increases.

As wives begin earning more than their husbands, the probability of receiving a mental health diagnosis increases by as much as 8% for all those observed in the study, but by as much as 11% for the men.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] fnrir@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

[Translation: Correlation does not equal causation.]

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Kanda@reddthat.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

It keeps coming up and 'experts' profess this occasionally. I'm too lazy to check the actual science, so I'll never know.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

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..

[–] Cringe2793@lemmy.world -5 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe this happens because the woman who earns more often emasculates her husband with snide remarks or jabs. Unlike the other way round where men are expected to earn more than their spouse otherwise they're "less of a man".

Maybe that's contributing to the higher mental health issues.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 48 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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???

[–] randomdeadguy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

well, I mean, she was a cute girl with a steady job, so, already got one up on the ol' ex 🤷‍♂️

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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.

[–] xorollo@leminal.space 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] xorollo@leminal.space 3 points 2 weeks ago

Agreed. I don't think it's about wives earning more than their husbands at all.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 50 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments