Salary gaps… never thought they were so wide!

This is a good point.

We have always closely leapfrogged each other up until a point before we had kids, where I burned out. But my husband was also on the point of burnout, and I made an ultimatum that he switched to a job with a better work-life balance before children (instead of 80h weeks and working on holidays).

We have planned our son, careers and house moves together. For a little while, the focus was on me requalifying in a sideways move with good long-term prospects (data and AI). Then he did some work on getting a big promotion. Now the focus is on me again to switch to self-employed to maximise income and improve our flexibility.

Agree with others that the 32k number might not tell you that much - unclear from the article whether it’s a mean or a median, plus it’s ‘a difference’ so will always be > 0. It’s possible for eg that in relationships where the woman earns more the difference is (making up numbers) on average ~8k, and in relationships where the man earns more the difference is on average ~40k (lots of women not working at all, lots of very very high earners skewing the data). That gives you an average of 32k difference if roughly a quarter of the time it’s a women earning more… (obviously all of this just ignores the existence of gay couples..)
TLDR: these stats alone don’t necessarily tell you that much!

Not surprising! Myself and all my girlfriends are the breadwinners.

I earn £60k more than my DH.

I know in my friendship group of 6, 5 earn more than their DH (no idea how much) and in my peer group of 5 at work. All but 2 earn more than thier DH.

I think those of us mums who have kept up their careers while having children had to be extremely driven and determined to make it all work so not surprised some of us managed to be successful in their jobs and you end up with that number of female breadwinners.

DH is older than me, working in a sector that generally pays more than mine and was already working when we met while I was still studying. It took me a good while - also because I was working mainly part time since having kids - but I am now out earning him (I work four days, he five but even in four days I earn more than he in five). Most of us mums are just used to having to work incredibly hard and that sometimes translates to higher earnings ( not always as some sectors have such low pay no matter how brilliant you are you will never outearn a mediocre man in a high-paying sector). Regardless how much we earn the mental load remains ours to carry though.

Spot on for DH and I!

I also earn more just slightly.
This reminds me of an interesting piece i read on grazia
https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/in-the-news/breadwinner-wives-invisible-load/
Breadwinning wives still tend to do more housework. Definitely tracks 🤔

I am the breadwinner and earn £110k more than my husband

my best friend also considerably out-earns her husband. We are certainly the anomaly though in my experience

My husband earns 4x what I do and I work double the hours

he works in finance and has a lot of pressure

i work in emergency services and get a good wage in my opinion plus over time but the pay and hours are far worse

I would choose my job and day though as it’s a vocation

We have a pre nup that stipulates I’d be entitled to half of everything amassed in the marriage. But aside from that, I plan to always remain in the work force, keep my pension contributions at the same rate even when salary drops if I’m part-time at different points, continue to have have a shared approach to the marital ‘pot’

yeah, where's the link to the actual nationwide survey, not the summary in the metro which isn't exactly known for journalistic integrity...

reference to the same survey is reported in the evening standard and the independent as "The average wage gap between friends and partners has reached £32,000" which is completely different!

Also it only surveyed 2000 people, compared to the ONS stats which take into account the entire population, so...

For example if the questions first asked:
do both you and your partner work?
then, if yes,
is there a significant disparity in your wages?
and only then
'how much is the difference?'
It wouldn't be reflective of the general population, would it?

plus depending on how they worked out the 'average' (if that even was what the original findings said) one footballer earning £20million with a stay at home WAG would completely skew the statistics.

I earn 3x what my DH does. He has a degree . I only went to college once I started working full time and now have two professional qualifications . In our case, he is highly skilled but in a lower paying industry where mine pays more. He took the career break for the kids due to the disparity in our incomes.

@Boohoololyouve literally described DH and I 🤣 I earn almost double what he does (used to be more than double but he was promoted last year!)

can I be nosey? How do you plan to protect yourself financially if you do split after you have kids? Ie both of you having access to all family money etc?

@Donotfitin we are the same: I earn just over twice what DH does. i had always earned more (from a £1k gap when we stated dating to a gap around £35k more recently. A few close friends have the same situation.

a few things anecdotally i have noticed our families have in common.

1. woman was top of the class academically through school and continued learning:
2. married / settled fairly young: kids a good few years into the relationship
3. woman quite assertive and not too interested in playing second place to men in general
4. husband takes an equal share of housework and child rearing

My husband earns 3x what I earn, roughly £250k to my £70k and I will likely go part time after mat leave whilst his salary will continue to increase. I do see a fair amount of female breadwinners in our respective industries though

It'll be non and high earners skewing the stats. Basically it's one of those scenarios where the median isn't going to be particularly relevant.

That is my experience. I work in a professional role that is very high paying, but it’s very demanding in terms of what is expected. In general what happens is that most women in my profession find that once they have children they may go down to four days and are also not going that “extra mile”, because they actually want to see their kids. So suddenly their earnings go down.

When I think of my female colleagues and friends from uni, they all started off earning the same or more than male peers, but now they are all earning a lot less than their partners.

I am a typical example. I became a lone parent and kept working but could not focus on my career 100% as ( as had to do 98% of parenting) so now my exH earns about 10 times what I do.

I earn £50k more than my DH

My take home last year was c.8 times that of my DH who works full time. Quite common in my industry to have one very high earner and one average earner. I guess men still tend to be the higher earner, but I'm not at all unusual in being a woman and the higher earner.

I imagine it's law, finance, consulting etc skewing the figures to get to the £32k average gap.

You are surprised to learn that 77% of women earn less than men?

Not really. Women are also punished for doing pick ups etc and skipped over for promotion, hired less, careers stalled. But we do it because someone has to get the kids not because employers are happy for us to do it.

That’s less than 1 in 4…. Why are you so shocked that few women are breadwinners? Women make up the majority of new graduates, new doctors, new dentists. Much of that 23% will be young members of those cohorts.