Old Moral Story:
Once, a fox was very thirsty. He saw a big well nearby and peeped into it. The fox slipped and fell into the well. He tried to come out. But he could not do so. After some time, there came a goat who was also thirsty.
He too peeped into the well. The fox saw the goat and said from inside the well, “The water is very sweet. Come and Come to enjoy.” The foolish goat also jumped into the well.
The clever fox climbed on the back of the goat and jumped out of the well.
Moral: Look before you leap.
Old Story in the present context:
Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.
Once, a fox was very thirsty. He saw a big well nearby and peeped into it. The fox slipped and fell into the well. He tried to come out. But he could not do so. After some time, there came a goat who was also thirsty.
He too peeped into the well. The fox saw the goat and said from inside the well, “The water is very sweet. Come and Come to enjoy.” The foolish goat also jumped into the well.
The clever fox climbed on the back of the goat and jumped out of the well.
Moral: Look before you leap.
Old Story in the present context:
Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.
Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed,
you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that
marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are
more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat and less likely to have
children. And if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about
it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even
those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is
the primary breadwinner.
Not a happy conclusion, especially given that many men,
particularly successful men, are attracted to women with similar goals and
aspirations. And why not? After all, your typical career girl is well educated,
ambitious, informed and engaged. All seemingly good things, right? Sure … at
least until you get married. Then, to put it bluntly, the more successful she
is, the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you. Sound familiar?
Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the
marital status of your spouse's parents (folks with divorced parents are
significantly more likely to get divorced themselves), age at first marriage,
race, religious beliefs and socio-economic status. And, of course, many working
women are indeed happily and fruitfully married--it's just that they are less
likely to be so than nonworking women. And that, statistically speaking, is the
rub.
To be clear, we're not talking about a high school dropout
minding a cash register. For our purposes, a "career girl" has a
university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside
the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.
If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these
women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the
kids, they will be unhappy ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will
be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Social Forces, 2006). You will
be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Journal of Marriage and
Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of
Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier ( Institute for Social Research).
Why? Well, despite the fact that the link between work,
women and divorce rates is complex and controversial, much of the reasoning is
based on a lot of economic theory and a bit of common sense. In classic
economics, a marriage is, at least in part, an exercise in labor
specialization. Traditionally, men have tended to do "market" or paid
work outside the home, and women have tended to do "nonmarket" or
household work, including raising children. All of the work must get done by
somebody, and this pairing, regardless of who is in the home and who is outside
the home, accomplishes that goal. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that
when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases--if, for example, both
spouses have careers--the overall value of the marriage is lower for both
partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life
harder for both partners and divorce more likely. And, indeed, empirical
studies have concluded just that.
In 2004, John H. Johnson examined data from the Survey of
Income and Program Participation and concluded that gender has a significant
influence on the relationship between work hours and increases in the
probability of divorce. Women's work hours consistently increase divorce,
whereas increases in men's work hours often have no statistical effect. "I
also find that the incidence in divorce is far higher in couples where both
spouses are working than in couples where only one spouse is employed,"
Johnson says. A few other studies, which have focused on employment (as opposed
to working hours), have concluded that working outside the home actually
increases marital stability, at least when the marriage is a happy one. But
even in these studies, wives' employment does correlate positively to divorce
rates, when the marriage is of "low marital quality."
The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be
obvious to anyone who has seen his or her mate run off with a co-worker: When
your spouse works outside the home, chances increase that he or she will meet
someone more likable than you. "The work environment provides a host of
potential partners," researcher Adrian J. Blow reported in The Journal of
Marital and Family Therapy, "and individuals frequently find themselves
spending a great deal of time with these individuals."
There's more: According to a wide-ranging review of the
published literature, highly educated people are more likely to have had
extramarital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 times more likely to
have cheated than those with high school diplomas). Additionally, individuals
who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.
And if the cheating leads to divorce, you're really in
trouble. Divorce has been positively correlated with higher rates of
alcoholism, clinical depression and suicide. Other studies have associated
divorce with increased rates of cancer, stroke, and sexually transmitted
disease. Plus, divorce is financially devastating. According to one recent study
on "Marriage and Divorce's Impact on Wealth," published in The
Journal of Sociology, divorced people see their overall net worth drop an
average of 77%.
So why not just stay single? Because, academically speaking,
a solid marriage has a host of benefits beyond just individual
"happiness." There are broader social and health implications as
well. According to a 2004 paper titled "What Do Social Scientists Know
About the Benefits of Marriage?," marriage is positively associated with
"better outcomes for children under most circumstances" and higher
earnings for adult men, and "being married and being in a satisfying
marriage are positively associated with health and negatively associated with
mortality." In other words, a good marriage is associated with a higher
income, a longer, healthier life and better-adjusted kids.
A word of caution, though: As with any social scientific
study, it's important not to confuse correlation with causation. In other
words, just because married folks are healthier than single people, it doesn't
mean that marriage is causing the health gains. It could just be that healthier
people are more likely to be married.
Moral: Look before you Leap, Think before you Marry.
- By Michael Noer
Parent Link: Careers and Marriage