Marriage is not a fixed pie, but women deserve more than crumbs

This is the fourth Above Our Pay Grade, feat. economist Corinne Low, PhD

Welcome to our fourth installment of Above Our Pay Grade, where we speak with subject matter experts who can take you deeper on important topics than we can! This time, at the end of a busy family season, we’re going all in on equity at home and in the world.

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Corinne Low is an economist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work explores gender, labor markets, and the hidden economics of household decision making. She is the author of a fantastic book, Having It All, and a newsletter that explores the economics of being a woman. Her research helps us understand how caregiving and unpaid labor shape women’s financial outcomes, careers, and well-being.

Corinne and I met at an event after our books came out, and I’ve loved digging into her work and getting to know her as a person. Her points below feel like data-driven confirmation of something I went long on last week: the importance of men stepping into their identities as caregivers. So, I was thrilled when she agreed to join me for this edition of Above Our Pay Grade. Here are snippets of our conversation, edited for space and clarity:

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Heather: I think a lot of couples genuinely feel like they’re splitting their household responsibilities fairly, but when you look closer, that’s not the case. Why do you think there’s such a disconnect between perception and reality when it comes to division of labor?

Corinne Low: With my work, I don’t want to demonize anybody. I think that everyone’s trying to pitch in as best they can, but I do think there is a perception gap in two areas.

One area is in parenting, and I think what’s going on there is how much the ground has shifted over time. Dads today think about the experience of their childhoods, and they’re like, “I’m an amazing dad. I dropped the kid off at daycare, I read a bedtime story, and my dad never did any of that stuff.” So, they’re giving themselves the gold star, and society is pinning the gold star on them.

But, because parenting time has increased so much overall, even though dads are spending way more time than their dads did with their kids, the gap in time has gotten wider instead of narrower. So, mom’s time has increased even more, and it’s this slippery slope where you can’t catch up.

And then the second thing is household tasks. What’s happening is that there are so many things that are little and small and momentary that they become invisible, because they’re not these big, chunky tasks.

The data set that I use is called the American Time Use Survey, where you can actually see how people are spending their time. Men are doing things like taking out the trash, cleaning gutters, or washing the car—tasks that are often weekly, monthly, or even annual.

Women are doing the laundry, packing the lunches, cleaning up, tidying, but they’re also confirming doctor’s appointments, answering texts from caregivers, and rearranging schedules, and arranging carpools. Those things are daily. They’re hourly.

And so household time becomes like an iceberg, where there’s this visible tiny portion that they’re splitting very well, because those are the tasks that are clearly delineated: “Put this on the to-do list, somebody has to do it.” And then there’s this iceberg of invisible labor underneath the surface. I recommend couples actually track their time to make that invisible piece visible.

H: Why is time such an important lens for creating fairness in relationships?

C: This is about self-actualization and fulfillment. Even women who say, “I chose to take a step back in my career, because I love spending time with my kids,” it’s not the folding socks that’s self-actualizing for them, right? It’s not answering a million texts or figuring out the carpool for travel soccer.

That type of time is ultimately eating away at the investment that each of us could make in our self-actualization, and for the long-term health of your partnership, you want both people to be self-actualized. You want both people to be fulfilled.

I tell them to look your free time that’s just for you. Economists call it leisure time. How much truly free time do you have to truly do whatever you want to do?

H: Something that surprises a lot of people is that even in households where women out-earn their partners, they often still carry more domestic responsibility. Why is that?

C: That’s exactly what bothers me when I look at the data. You see couples where she earns four times as much as him and still does twice as much of the housework, because her career doesn’t receive the same priority we typically give a male breadwinner.

So when you look at the overall gender wage gap, if you think about every man in a heterosexual relationship who is in a high-powered career, their career gets treated as the priority, and their wife is supporting their career. And then you think about every woman in those high-powered positions, and they’re not receiving the same benefit at home. Of course, you’re going to end up with a gender wage gap, because he can show up those extra ten hours a week to make that investment to climb the corporate ladder.

We had this partial gender revolution, where women stepped into the labor market, and our gender roles equalized there a lot more, but we didn’t really reevaluate men’s gender roles at home for them to find pride and self-fulfillment in those other tasks.

H: Your work really challenges the idea that women simply need to “optimize better” to have successful careers and successful family lives. Like, we all just need to be able to juggle one more thing or do a little better with our time management skills to make it work. What remains misunderstood about the phrase, “having it all?”

C: The book is really written as an answer to this strain of feminism that I really resent, which I will call, “Lean In Feminism.” Of course, there’s some good things that the Lean In Movement started and created, but there’s some problematic things about it, because the overall message was that women aren’t trying hard enough. Women are taking their foot off the gas, and so we are to blame for the fact that our careers are falling behind, and if he had just wanted it more, if we had been a little more ambitious, it would’ve been different.

When you look at how men who are partnered to those high-achieving women are spending their time, men are not “leaning in” at home. Research following elite MBA graduates found that 12 years later, women in the top 10 percent of earnings were earning about the same as the average man.

So, what my book says is that amid all those structural constraints—which I hope one day somebody gives me a magic wand to change—you have permission to carve out a life that works for you.

That might not mean being an equal to your male colleagues, and it might not mean being as perfect of a mom as what you see on Instagram. The book is about giving you permission and tools to find your “all.”

I joke that it’s like “having it all(most).” It’s not going to look perfect, and it’s not going to be tied up with a bow. But you can navigate these constraints however you damn well please. You can ask, “What can I do to make me and my family’s life work better?”

H: When you zoom out, how much do you think what happens inside the home shapes gender equity in the broader economy?

C: I have a friend who is a female partner at a finance company, and she tells me that all the men in her position have stay-at-home wives. So, the more her plate is fuller, the less sleep she gets, the less margin she has to play with when something goes wrong, how can that not impact her career growth?

Even more insidious than that, because men aren’t going to do the lion’s share at home and they’re uncomfortable with the role of default parent, sometimes when a couple has the choice, they will invest in a man’s career, because it’s affirming the role of the person whose identity is more tied to that role.

And look, marriage is not a fixed pie. These investments that you make in one another, they can pay off in the greater scheme, but it does bother me when eight slices of that pie go to him and crumbs go to her. There’s plenty of data and research to back this up.

I do want couples to have very frank conversations and say, “The time I’m spending with the kids, the time I’m putting into the house, these are investments into you and your career. What are we going to do to turn the tables? What can we do to invest in me?”

So if there is a class you’ve wanted to take online, or you want a babysitter to go to a networking event, just make sure that the way you support your household, the household is also investing in you. That it’s a two-way street.

Thank you so much to Corinne Low for helping me go Above Our Pay Grade. Don’t forget to subscribe to her newsletter and check out her book, Having It All!

Want to suggest an expert for a future installment of Above Our Pay Grade? Reach out anytime.

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Bucket list stuff.

This week, we had the opportunity to help close the Nasdaq alongside our friends at Motley Fool Asset Management, followed by a wonderful cocktail reception and a live recording of their new podcast, Fool Disclosure.

The conversations we’re having across the financial services industry are increasingly focused on helping people build stronger relationships with money and each other. Above all, they're about meeting people where they are.

Seeing our faces in Times Square wasn’t too bad, either!!

A huge thank you to the team at MFAM for including Money Together in your special day. We really did have a fantastic conversation that I can't wait for more people to hear on the pod.

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Want to go deeper? Money Together is everything we’ve learned about love and money, told through real stories with lessons for couples who want to build a financial life together without losing themselves in the process. Order your copy on: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or Audible (narrated by Heather!).

Love it already? A review on Goodreads and wherever you purchased helps other couples find us and means more than you know.

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The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation. The information contained in this post is general in nature and for informational purposes only. It should not be considered as investment advice or as a recommendation of any particular strategy or investment product. This post is not a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any specific security. Bone Fide Wealth cannot guarantee the accuracy of information from third parties.