Historical gender norms have suggested that husbands are the primary, and often sole, breadwinner in the household.  Obviously, this changed gradually over the last half a century with modern households generally a more egalitarian place (albeit with the pandemic seeing something of a reversion to more traditional gender roles at home).

Research from the University of Kansas provides a glimpse into how much progress has been made, however.  It reveals that couples are less likely to uproot wives’ careers in favor of the husband’s career than ever before.

Staying put

The study finds that when couples contribute about the same to the family purse, they are much less likely to move for work than couples where the male is the sole breadwinner.

“When people are thinking about things like moving for new job opportunities and the role that plays in the economy, they think of it more in terms of individuals moving toward economic opportunity,” the researchers say. “They don’t think about how most people are actually in a family context where there might be a whole additional career to consider.”

As gender roles have evolved the concept of the “tied stayer” has emerged.  This is someone who would probably migrate if they were single but instead tends to stay in place due to various family considerations.

“In the past, when a dual-earner couple would move, they might have put more weight on the man’s career. They would have been willing to move for a new job opportunity for the man, even if it would hurt the woman’s career,” the researcher explains. “Whereas now they weigh both of these considerations more evenly, and they might forego an opportunity for the man out of concern for disrupting the woman’s career.”

An equal share

The researchers analyzed data from the Current Population Survey, which is collected annually and explores the mobility of families between counties or states.  The researchers deployed a regression technique to gauge the relationship between the division of income in the relationship and the likelihood of moving to a new county or state in any given year.

They argue that the decline in the likelihood of moving among dual-earner couples accounts for around a third of the total decline in migration among married couples between the 1990s and 2010s.  The findings remind us that the decline in migration isn’t always due to problems in the labor market.

“We can’t just assume everyone can move to a new region that has better economic development,” the authors conclude. “We can’t just assume everybody can uproot and head to these metropolitan areas with lots of tech jobs where the economic outlook is very different. When we have an economy with a lot of households that have two earners, it’s a bit more complicated.”