Women Making More Money Than Their Husbands Are Lying About It To The Census Bureau

Just a generation ago it was often seen as frowned upon for a woman to be more successful in her career than her husband. While things have seemingly changed for the better, the Census Bureau recently released some pretty discouraging news on this front, reporting that women who make more money than their husbands are lying about, to the Census Bureau. A new study from the Census Bureau compared the incomes couples were reporting to their actual earnings, and found that when the wife is the bigger earner in the couple, the husband often claims to earn more money than he actually makes. The wife, meanwhile often undereports her income in those cases. The study found that on average husbands were reporting they earned 2.9% more than they actually did if their wives earned more than them. On the flip side, women on average in those cases were reporting their earnings to be 1.5% less than they actually were. The study also found that when a wife earns more, both the husband and wife were diminishing the wife’s earnings and exaggerating the husband’s.

Per the Census Bureau we can blame “societal expectations about the roles played in married-couple relationships” squarely for this.

Bottom line: While 2018 might seem like a banner year as far as the conversation for equal pay goes–particularly in Hollywood thanks to the #TimesUp movement–we have a long way to go.

Feature Image: Twenty 20