To be amazed how much women benefit financially from marriage

[Singleparent78]

I've been single most of my adult life, worked FT and built up a good career but despite this... I'm always struck how much better off women who are married are than me.

It's not just about the merging together of two salaries, but about how much easier financial life is when you have the benefit of a man's higher average income, giving many women a lifestyle they could never afford on their own salaries.

Consider:

• the many women I work with on low salaries or working part-time who are living much nicer lifestyles than I as they have a man significantly supplementing them.

• the married women I know at 45+ who have moved to part-time or stopped working as they have accrued significant savings with their dh but, critically, their dh is now a high earner who can pay for both of them.

• the girls from school who didn't go onto further education, got married soon out of school and haven't worked at all or a bit of p-time - they mostly live in nice houses and cars, have enjoyed nice holidays etc. There hasn't been much 'penalty' for not being independent or not having a career.

All in all these women, by way of marriage, seem to have an easier go than solo me slogging it out for 30 years working FT and trying my best to be independent.... like the teachers at school told us girls to be!

I understand: all the constraints on women to generate their own income esp the gender pay gap and the impact of childrearing; that the above scenarios don't apply to all couples; that I'm assuming a heterosexual set up; that women contribute within marriages in other way than bringing in income; and that assets in a marriage are shared as is any income that comes into a marriage. I know people might think I'm being anti-women for challenging women's choices or women's rights or just plain bitter...

Still, AIBU to wonder:.......Is it not depressing that the best or most common way for women to be financially comfortable or create wealth is still through marriage and the merging of assets with a man?

"To be clearer then - there’s no reason why men can’t contribute at home the same as women do."

I remember the woman who was the first chairperson of a football team saying she wouldn't accept a male employee taking a day off for a sick child because a sick child wants their mother...
This was a few years ago now though. Not sure to what extent this has changed.

Absolutely, although I don’t really like the term ‘financially dependant’ when describing a marriage as effectively what’s mine is his and vice versa and when children are involved we’re very much dependant on each other in order to maintain both our careers as commercial childcare is not available to cover the hours we need. If you become single and have been a married SAHP then you weigh up your options, obviously you either get a job or rely on wealth, benefits or maintenance

I think it’s changed a bit but not enough. We need to call out this sexist rubbish where we hear it and make clear to those saying it (make or female) that it’s not acceptable.

Yes I always remember being looked down as a single mother by such types, find it quite ironic now the tables are turned.

🙌

Are they any worse off than if they hadn’t married though? Would they have necessarily had some glittering career and house without marriage? In most cases these women seem to be left with a house and decent child support, although they usually aggrieved at their drop in standard of living

Are they any worse off than if they hadn’t married though? Would they have necessarily had some glittering career and house without marriage?

That's exactly why I raise my eyebrows when the inevitable "sacrificed her career..." posts come along.

Depends how the couple organise their lives and the extent to which their careers are flexible - which many increasingly are. We both worked FT but our dd was never in full time childcare - not even close. We worked flexibly around each other.

We need to approach these issues more creatively in my view. Employers need to be more flexible and parents (fathers as well as mothers) need to ask for more flexibility. Of course, there will be roles where it can't work, but there are plenty of opportunities where it could that aren't being maximised right now.

Part of the problem at the moment is that so few fathers even ask for any flexible working, which makes it much harder for mothers to asK for more.

It really doesn’t. In the Uk no one has to return to work before a year off and men can now take part of the mat leave. In my profession I see senior women now comfortable to take the full year unlike in the old days where women would literally take two weeks. Also both parties could drop a day for example or work part time. What it doesn’t mean is that women give up work and economic independence to do all the grunt work (and men spend no time with their own children) so that we can continue with ridiculous sexist gender stereotypes.

Sharing childcare more equally doesn’t mean that men still don’t have to do any! It’s about both parties contributing to their children as well as to the finances. It would definitely be great for many kids to spend more time with their dads.

Also we are talking about people who apparently need to be “facilitated” here (ie high earners) by a sahp. They can certainly afford high quality childcare (I had a full time nanny when dds young) and there’s every evidence that good quality childcare is very beneficial to children. So yes it can impact children very positively.

Absolutely. Our wonderful nanny brought something different to dd's early years that neither dh nor I could offer, and dd's life was infinitely richer for it!

I'm not trying to moan about married women, it's more of an observation that despite what 2nd wave feminism told us being independent is hard work and default marriage is actually probably an easier and more financially secure option.

You should probably look at the situation at the end of working life or further down the line, when the financial effects of divorce and having 'giving up a career', reducing hours or not going for promotions because of the unequal burden of childcare has had an impact on pensions.

Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. Locally there are many women who don't have careers who move about from part time minimum wage shop work to nothing for a bit to part time shop work somewhere else. They seem happy with that.

But DH is an engineer (degree educated) and in our part of the UK at least, they seem to get stuck on 50-60k (if not contracting) whereas the women I know from university are earning more than that if full time by a fair margin or are part time and are earning around the same.

What I'm saying is that there aren't that many men now who earn enough to have the lifestyle described. Maybe in areas with cheaper house prices there are. Its all so variable.

absolutely - if all parents are asking for flexible work or if men and women are doing so equally, that’s going to move equality along in leaps and bounds.

as you say @Mumwantingtogetitright most people have jobs they can work kids around to some degree. I used to work long hours in the city so I had a nanny. But that’s not the norm.

But men don't make more than women until they're in their 30s, which coincides with having children (statistically). Not rocket science to work out what happens at that point to mean earnings fall for women.

I agree that it’s pretty depressing on mn and to some degree irl that some women still seem to have the ambition of marrying a rich man. Look at all the threads on mn about “protection” of marriage and awful behavior to single mums. i would like to think we had come along further.

however I don’t think women who marry for money necessarily have an easier life than us single mums. Certainly they don’t have the choices or autonomy we have.

But it’s true that there are some women who don’t have the ability to earn a decent salary or build financial security on their own whose only real option is to rely on someone else. But we shouldn’t judge men any more harshly in this position imo or think this applies to women by virtue of their sex. It doesn’t.

Actually statistically women earn slightly more than men until mid 30s or so. Men still make more money largely due to gender stereotypes that are pushing women out the workplace.

I have both male and female staff in my team, including quite a lot of fathers and mothers. We pride ourselves on being an extremely flexible employer. There is absolutely no reason why the fathers can't work every bit as flexibly as the mothers do, but typically, they just don't ask. They don't seem to feel a need. There are a couple of notable exceptions, but for the most part, the men just expect their wives to pick up the slack.

It has been like this in every organisation I have worked. There seems to be an unwritten assumption, still, that childcare is the responsibility of the female parent. I have even heard a male employee on the phone to his wife saying that there is absolutely no way that he can leave to pick up a sick child because he has important meetings that he can't possibly get out of...bollocks!

Women's careers will continue to suffer unnecessarily while this current culture of women being the default parent prevails.

Your children aren't going to say 'I'm so glad mum was a CEO and I saw her three hours of each weekday'

They very well might appreciate all the advantages afforded them by having a high earning parent(s) - health, wealth, life expectancy, travel experiences, private education, deposit for a home, support through university etc

I don't disagree that there are many women who suffer in later life due to relying on someone financially and things all going tits up.... but there are also many women who turn out okay. And the key thing is there are many women who are willing to take that risk as the alternative is probably more of a slog.

So @Singleparent78 what’s your ultimate point? Women are just fundamentally lazy?

I'm not sure I understand your point. "It's not about having a man it's about having 2 incomes in one household."
Having 2 incomes, if you are happy in your marriage and you married a good man, just makes life so much easier. For many. Actually it's not just the money, someone that talk to, someone to share, someone to share the household jobs, someone to share the children with. Just all makes life easier. For some .

Agree. Read Leslie Bennett's The Feminine Mistake as she tells stories of women who have nothing in later life due to giving up work/career and relationships not working out.

I remember her writing about what a particular burden it can be to be an impoverished elderly parent and your children having to sub you - that's a real burden they have to shoulder. I think about that a lot and am doing everything to ensure I am as okay as possible later in life. Frankly, I would rather my children were upset by being in wraparound care than me having no $ to support them later in life.

The book is great by the way, speaks the truth, but really hated by a lot of women...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feminine-Mistake-Are-Giving-Much/dp/1401309380

And the key thing is there are many women who are willing to take that risk as the alternative is probably more of a slog
I assume from this that you don't have any married female friends and have never read any threads on here. Which somewhat begs the question of why you're here posting goady nonsense.

being a SAHM was a hell of a lot easier than taking the low pay and low skill jobs available.

Also making economic sense. You can't beat someone up for making sound economic decisions. If you're in a low paid and low skilled job, why would you pay for childcare which costs more than your income? I can understand paying to work if in the long term you're building a career, but that's not the case for low paid and low skilled jobs.

My dd is actually very proud of the fact that I'm a CEO and of the work that I do, not to mention grateful for the opportunities that my salary and professional connections have afforded her.

There was never a time when I only saw her for 3 hours each weekday, and we have always been exceptionally close. I am thankful that I have been able to model an approach to combining career and motherhood that has shown her that she doesn't have to choose between the two if she doesn't want to. Having spent my own teen years feeling incredibly guilty about the sacrifices that my lovely but unfulfilled SAH mum had made for me and my dsis, it was important to me to find a way of pursuing my own dreams and ambitions without compromising at all on the relationship with my child. I feel that I have been lucky enough to be able to do that, and I hope that dd will be able to find her own balance in life going forward, whatever that might look like.