This idea that women need to get married for financial protection is bizarre

[NewFem]

I’ve encountered this view so many times here and it doesn’t make any amount of sense to me. Can someone please explain this to me how it applies to modern life?

Girls go to school and receive the exact same quality of education that boys do.
Girls, I read outperform boys in SATs, GCSEs and at A-level.
Girls attend university at higher rates than boys do, across most ethnicities in the UK.
Girls outnumber boys in highly paid professions like medicine.
Girls also study science, technology, engineering and maths subjects at university in increasing numbers.

Women are perfectly capable of being educated, having a high salary and making a living for themselves. I know plenty of women who are homeowners by themselves and manage to buy a house individually with no help. So why is there still this idea that we need men for financial security. It doesn’t make sense.

When it comes to children and childbirth, most women don’t give up their careers so protection doesn’t apply to them either. I looked this up, in 2019, 75.1% of mothers in the UK were in work. In 2020, 71.8% of mothers in the UK were in work.

In 2019, only 28.5% of mothers with children below 14 years old reduced their working hours to accommodate childcare. This means most women (71.5%) did not reduce or limit their working hours. So it isn’t true for the majority of mothers that most women give up working after they’ve had children or that a man’s career remains unaffected and a woman’s career declines because of childcare. Therefore we need marriage to have protection.

At least this is my opinion based on data and my own life experiences. Open to hear other points of view though

Many of the jobs with the best potential for a high-earning trajectory require, not full time, but MORE than full time work, especially in the early years. Which just happen to be the years when women have young children and are least able to work full time (or to work at all, in some cases, eg children with additional needs).

After having children, some women quit altogether. They may or may not return to work, but if they do, it may be in a low paying role (and some studies have shown that as little as a year of not working in her field severely compromises a woman's ability to get a job in her field of specialty).

Some women stay in a job in their field but go part-time while their children are young. After they return to full time work, those women may or may not be able to "catch up" with the earnings of similarly educated males who didn't have to care for children and therefore who never left fulltime work.

Some women stay in their field and remain fulltime. The ones who are truly equalling high male salaries are probably working more than fulltime, traveling, etc. This can be possible if all the stars align: kids not always sick, ability to pay for childcare that may be above fulltime hours, and/or childcare help from family members (eg grandparents). Another portion do ok, maybe by being in a fulltime but lesser earning and more flexible job. Some of the women recorded as being in fulltime work may have been in the non-working or part-time work before, and that will be reflected in their salary and degree of seniority at work, but not in a simple record of how many women are in fulltime work this year.

So just a snapshot of the percentage of women currently working zero/part/full time will not capture all the information needed to understand how motherhood changes a woman's lifetime earnings.

Why?

Why bastardise the statistics, misrepresent them and remain seemingly blind to the fact that it is not the man but the contract that protects women against losses incurred throughout a relationship, especially one that includes children?

What is the point of refusing to engage with the experiences of others? Being 'happy to hear' them isn't enough! You have to be willing to consider them too.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

I brought up my son alone and have a house, pension, well paid job. There is no way I'd get married so some bloke could walk off with half my house and pension.

This exactly.

Its very simple. When children are added to the equation, women often sacrifice their earning power and careers permanently.

Their choice entirely

@LocalHobo

Its very simple. When children are added to the equation, women often sacrifice their earning power and careers permanently.

Their choice entirely

And so their choice to get married as part of this?

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

I brought up my son alone and have a house, pension, well paid job. There is no way I'd get married so some bloke could walk off with half my house and pension.

That’s why the advice on MN is not to marry if you’re the one with the assets.

Not sure where OP is seeing all these threads saying otherwise

@LocalHobo

Its very simple. When children are added to the equation, women often sacrifice their earning power and careers permanently.

Their choice entirely

But men also choose to have children, children are costly in many ways. Why should it only cost women?

If women opted out of having children and waited for men to do it, there obviously would be no new people.

The marriage contract (should) make it a shared endeavour, even if down the line the relationship doesn’t survive.

@Sparklfairy

Its very simple. When children are added to the equation, women often sacrifice their earning power and careers permanently.

This is the point

@LocalHobo

Its very simple. When children are added to the equation, women often sacrifice their earning power and careers permanently.

Their choice entirely

More and more women are choosing not to have children. I think the figure is around 20% for women and increasing rapidly.

If we can just convince our daughters to follow this path, then there will be no motherhood penalty for the next generation. And no next generation after that to worry about...

for UK women

[quote thepeopleversuswork]@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon

Honestly I can't think of any woman I know personally or professionally whose career hasn't been affected negatively by children. Some more than others but they are all affected.

This is undoubtedly true.

Most people would be best served overall by getting married.

Definitely not true in my case. If I were to marry my current partner (who earns about two thirds of what I do and doesn't own property) and we split I and my child would stand to lose half of a house which I worked hard to buy, all my savings etc. My DD could lose access to her inheritance. He's not the father of my child and there's no impetus really on either side to get married. But it would be financial suicide for me to do so.

My situation isn't a majority case but it's more common than you would think reading these boards.[/quote]
And that's why I said those with complex circumstances would need individual advice. Second marriages, relationships where there are children from previous relationships, and situations like an estate with an entail, really significant assets, rights to royalties etc would all need proper advice.

Also you would not generally lose half the house if you bought it prior to marriage, unless there was a good reason such as the spouse contributing in other ways like by doing renovations or giving up their job to look after the kids.

I often think this. I'm married but I earn double my DH. We are ttc and I plan to go back 4 days a week. I'd still earn more than DH on those reduced hours. This is the case with 75% of my girlfriends. They are all highly qualified and have high earning jobs in media, law and medicine and will earn more than their OH when part time. They all jointly own property or own property them selves and their other half live with them and pay them rent.

Being married meant that my ex was entitled to a settlement from me despite us having kids who live with me full time. If I hadn't been married I'd have been able to walk away. So I'd always advise caution and researching the implications for your specific situation (or potential situation eg if you're planning to leave work etc).

Married woman were not allowed to work.
So they had no choice except to have a man working to feed them and house them, and were left to have children and keep the house.
Then men didn't want to marry and the woman had the children but owned non of the assets of the relationship.
Now woman can end up with the better job, all the assets and the men don't like it.
Moral get a good job, or marry if you want to be be a stay at home mum, but want your share of the family assets.

@PoleFairy

I often think this. I'm married but I earn double my DH. We are ttc and I plan to go back 4 days a week. I'd still earn more than DH on those reduced hours. This is the case with 75% of my girlfriends. They are all highly qualified and have high earning jobs in media, law and medicine and will earn more than their OH when part time. They all jointly own property or own property them selves and their other half live with them and pay them rent.

All due respect. But come back to us in ten years.

Pre-kids looks completely different to post-kids along that particular axis.

Pre-kids looks completely different to post-kids along that particular axis.

This is true.

@PoleFairy

I often think this. I'm married but I earn double my DH. We are ttc and I plan to go back 4 days a week. I'd still earn more than DH on those reduced hours. This is the case with 75% of my girlfriends. They are all highly qualified and have high earning jobs in media, law and medicine and will earn more than their OH when part time. They all jointly own property or own property them selves and their other half live with them and pay them rent.

They may earn more than their DHs on reduced hours. If they don’t get made redundant during maternity, they may return to work at the same pay as when they left. But their ability to be promoted is crippled and pay raises are statistically not as forthcoming as they were premotherhood, hence the 3% mother vs nonmother pay gap in the exact same job (motherhood is not a protected characteristic under the Equality or Pay laws). Meanwhile, their DH is very likely to get promoted and get the pay raises so that over time, they commonly catch up and then surpass their female partner. The impact of motherhood isn’t just the maternity leave, it has ripple effects until you retire.

And when you do retire you’ll probably end up doing a disproportionate share of elder caring also (not always)

Honestly I can't think of any woman I know personally or professionally whose career hasn't been affected negatively by children. Some more than others but they are all affected.

WhenI was in my mid twenties, I joined a company as a senior and at interview they waxed lyrical about the women their organisation who were at associate and director level which was unusual in the construction professional workplace. After banging my head for 15 years, jumping through the ever changing hoops, seeing guys around me being promoted despite them doing less for the business than I had, it finally realised that every single woman in the company at associate or director level was childless.

@NewFem

“DorothyZbornakIsAQueen
Sorry, what's your argument?
That the common idea that women need to get married “for protection” doesn’t make sense for most women. This is because the majority of women work, earn their own money, are financially independent both before and after having children so don’t need to rely on a man’s money to survive.”

… I think you’re missing the point entirely- your post totally ignores:

• pay gap between men and women (kids or not)
• mental load of family life (kids or not)
• imbalances between gender power in relationships

… marriage means entitlement to spousal support if your OH is a dick. It’s more likely men will have greater wealth statistically due to traditional gender roles still being present. You mention all these modern elements of women’s lives; uni, education etc - but you aren’t mentioning the fact they are doing these AND a load of other work; often whether they have kids or not.
I’m curious to know if you are male or female.. out of fun curiosity I think you may be male because I’m sure to many many many women this is quite obvious? Xo

In my experience, and it's iust my experience of course, but women do gove up work to raise the children as childcare is too expensive.

Whilst we are gradually collecting the balance, we are still in a patriarchy and I think around 100 years away still from true equality.

I brought up my son alone and have a house, pension, well paid job. There is no way I'd get married so some bloke could walk off with half my house and pension.

That's different, if you've already raised your son, and I completely understand both men and women with assets not marrying if that is the case.
If, however, you and a man were planning to have a child and for him to quit his job/work very part time and do most of the domestic stuff, then it would be pretty unreasonable not to get married---he would be putting his own earning ability in jeopardy.

@stalkersaga

All due respect. But come back to us in ten years.

Not necessarily. If you do it on your own your career may thrive.

One of the biggest positive surprises about being a single mother is that you can actually get further in your career - even with all the exhaustion and limits on your time -- than you can being attached to a man. Because you're not weighed down by someone else's lack of engagement and participation. Who knew?

Obviously not for everyone and depends on having childcare and its knackering but sometimes the lack of a "partnership" can actually be a good thing.

@thepeopleversuswork
Statistically, single mothers are more likely to live in poverty than to have a successful career. So while a single mother can get ahead in her career compared to a married mother, it is not the norm but a minority experience. The motherhood penalty doesn’t skip you if you’re single. It affects all mothers, although it disproportionately hits high earning women harder.