The study, conducted by Dr Demid Getik, explores how mental health is related to income make-up within couples by examining the link between annual income rises for women and the number of clinical mental health diagnoses over a set period of time.
The study finds that as more women take on the breadwinner role in the household, the number of mental health related incidences also increases.
As wives begin earning more than their husbands, the probability of receiving a mental health diagnosis increases by as much as 8% for all those observed in the study, but by as much as 11% for the men.
[Translation: Correlation does not equal causation.]
Oh for fucks sake. No wonder this study is ridiculous. It’s an economist trying to make inferences on mental health. The only actual data he had is a correlation in mental health diagnoses and women earning significantly* more. (Number not defined)
He has no evidence for causation. He does no work to get rid of confounding factors like toxic masculinity’s famous dislike of therapy. He just sees a rise in the pure number of diagnoses and says women earning more is bad for the mental health of both people in a marriage. He doesn’t even bother to check what the diagnoses are, or look for any kind of severity. For all we know the finding here could be that women who earn more and men who are willing to be with them seek counseling earlier than couples where the man makes more.
This is shit science.
Yep. The guy got a large publicly available dataset (or one his university had access to) and mined it for interesting results to get a publication.
Yes, the link is this:
When all the adults in the household have to work 40+ hours a week, plus commute, plus all the adulting…they get sad since this is fucking toxic.
Also no one has time for civics.
Also no one has time to parent, so the kids are sad too.
If we’re looking at mental health problems, lets look here first.
You missed manly man not manly enough and now sad too.
Was talking to a cute girl at a New Years Eve party, and it came out that while I made a nice amount for doing very little work, she made even more but had to do a lot of work. I went straight to daydreaming about being a stay-at-home Dad so hard I almost fell off my chair.
Dudes, more money means more money, why on earth would having more money upset you???
I’m willing to bet it’s selection bias. They have more time for therapy and openness to the idea. It’s one of those studies that just looks at the numbers at the top of everything. X couples got divorced, Y people sought counseling, etc.
The most they can say is there’s an increased correlation in seeking mental help.
more money is not the goal of a long term relationship or at least, ought not be. I hope this person had other attractive qualities in addition to freeing you from working.
well, I mean, she was a cute girl with a steady job, so, already got one up on the ol’ ex 🤷♂️
Any chance this correlates with finally being able to afford mental health care?
The study focused on heterosexual Swedish couples of working age who married in 2001 and whose individual incomes measured at just above or just below the equal earnings threshold.
I wouldn’t have thought mental health care was inaccessible due to cost in a country like Sweden.
It’s not free, but it’s not expensive either, max of around $250 a year for all healthcare. But mental health care in Sweden is abysmal, if you’re lucky they’ll give you 12 sessions with a psychologist who is apathetic to your issues and then let you go, because they seem to see it as something that once your sessions are done, should be fixed.
This in a country rife with social isolation, months of dark and cold, hobbies that are too expensive to do and a generally unhealthy society.
It’s not always free in scandinavialand. If you have a referral from a doctor due to a mental illness or the like, it’s probably covered. But if you seek therapy out if own initiative you probably have to pay out of pocket.
Source: As a scandinavian I looked into it once, but upon noticing the hourly rate I figured that it would probably cause more mental distress than it would solve.
Ah, thanks.
It’s not just monetary, it’s also time, and being willing to admit you have a problem and seek help. Some jobs will fire you if you admit to having substance abuse or mental health problems, like airline pilots. (Or even if they don’t outright fire you, it’ll still end your career.)
Fair. I also would have thought, though, that Sweden would have had stronger labor protection laws to protect people who are getting help from retaliatory firing.
It does, and employers are usually very good as supporting their employees with health issues.
I’ve experienced a man in my life being really fucking salty and super dickish about my successful career. It isn’t a husband or SO, but my stepfather. The man who, until recently, has been a great father figure.
I can’t talk about work around him without his mood immediately souring. Idk if he’s jealous that I have some disposable income and that I am making a little less than he is and I’m only 3 years into my career as opposed to his 25, but it’s really discouraging.
Finances are very tight for him and my mother and it’s almost entirely his fault because he is terrible with money. It’s really sad to see him act this way. According to my mom, he has bitched to my grandma (his mom) about me taking up horseback riding and doing things with my new friends because it can be expensive. My grandma yelled at him over it and said that me doing new things and socializing is very good and she supports it. Idk why he thinks my finances are his business either. Ugh. The man is so frustrating.
Sorry for ranting. Guess I really needed to get all that out lol.
Well I hope there was some catharsis to your comment! That sucks you’re being subjected to it. Good for grandma having your back!
Society needs to normalize households women being successful.
I wanna be a house husband so bad yo I’d be so good at it I can cook and clean good enough to please anyone’s grandma and I can manage a household like a pro
Lemme stop working lemme decorate a fucking great room and meal prep for my loved ones FUCK
Trad husband. Based
Seriously though, I’d be absolutely fucking fine if I was a househusband.
Are you certain that’s how this actually works? Could it be that typical gender roles developed as they did because each of the sexes took on the roles they were suited for, and switching that up isn’t as simple as some would like to think?
Personally I’d suggest that men tend to be more competitive, and therefore are more suited to the work environment where you’re fighting against various external influences of indeterminate nature, while women tend to be more empathetic, and therefore are more suited to the home environment where seeking consensus and cohesion is more important.
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Neckbeard incel lol
Are you fucking stupid, or did you just wake up from a 100 year nap?
Rumpelstiltskin over here with opinions
or, we could NOT predefine roles for people based on sex, and let individuals make decisions for themselves. Maybe not everyone is the same, imagine that!
I dunno, maybe on average.
When I was unemployed for a bit between contracts, my wife made all the income and I paid for what I could with my emergency fund. (Everything worked out fine)
I did basically all the chores, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. in addition to looking for work and working on “side-hustles”.
She wishes that she made enough money so that we could hit that dual-income level alone and I could become a house husband for her, lmao
And hey, if she could make enough money on her own, I’d love that! Lol
Please Lord let me find a woman that makes the same as me and I’ll happily retire a Pinterest mom and support her career. I love my kid, my home, my time, my flexibility, optimizing systems with cart blanche…
Why is there an increase in mental health diagnoses recently?
Looks around at the state of the world. Tyranny on the rise; human right being violated across the globe; climate crisis set to boil humanity alive; tech companies funding dictators.
My hypothesis is that it is the fault of women.
It certainly doesn’t help that men and women are more adversarial than they have ever been. The cause may be just, but at the end of the day everyone is just lonely and miserable, and afraid of the other.
i want my wife to earn more than me; she sure deserves it. she has a higher education and a job that actually matters to humanity. i have a desk job that makes computers go beep. its absurd how low her pay is :(
I’m in the same boat. I happen to earn more, but not really through my own education/merit/worth to society - just by virtue of the industry I work in and that I can also make computers go beep sometimes.
For a while, my wife did earn more than me, and that was fine. My job was easier, so I did more housework and took some of the stress off her.
Imo it’s wild to be upset that you are earning more as a team just because the person earning the most on the team is a woman. Patriarchy is a hell of a drug
Wow, you and me have the same life it seems. My wife went to college, has her masters and 1 year shy of getting her PHD. and is a special education teacher making nothing crazy. I have no school and I am an IT admin and recently moved to networking and make only slightly more. She thinks I will be someone who cares that she makes more than me, and I say why? Why would I want us to have a harder time than we already have now? Please make more, make a lot more if you can! We only benefit more with peace of mind, I can care less who it comes from.
Some decent news is they work in steps so every year they are guaranteed a raise and she’s around step 15 of 20 which after looking at the steps the first 13 are awful and now the next 5 years are huge. Like so big that each year is basically the equivalent of the past 13 combined. So, considering how stagnant I’ve been, she will pass me by a decent amount within the next 5 years.
For men, mental health issues that arose as female earnings increased were more likely to be related to substance-related concerns, whereas women were more likely to experience neurotic and stress-related disorders.
I’m not convinced of a causative relationship here (well, at least for the men, it makes sense that working more increases stress on the women’s side). It’s possible that the woman became the higher earner because of the man’s existing substance abuse problem, and/or that the woman becoming a higher earner allowed the man to seek help for the problem.
It’s also possible that the substance abuse problem developed after the woman became the higher earner, though I’m not sure why that would happen.
It’s possible that the woman became the higher earner because of the man’s existing substance abuse problem, and/or that the woman becoming a higher earner allowed the man to seek help for the problem.
It’s also possible that the substance abuse problem developed after the woman became the higher earner, though I’m not sure why that would happen.
I think those are two fair bits of speculation that warrant further study and/or reporting.
They can afford it now?
Men that are upset that their wives out-earn them are missing the point of marriage. The point of marriage isn’t him vs her, its the two of you together against the world. If she is earning more than him, then that benefits him too because he’s part of the marriage.
I’m constantly astonished when I hear of men that are upset by their wives out-earning them. Some of these men have even sabotaged their wife’s work or changed the circumstances at home preventing her from continuing in the job where she out-earns him. My only hope for these women is they realize their husband’s love is conditional on him being dominant over her, and that she seeks out a better future where she can be her best self.
Yup I remember hearing this for the first time talking to a co-worker. He would never date anyone making more than him in $. I was so confused cause I’m happy my wife makes more $ than me. Which is the reason I went back to school cause I wanted to help with contribute more. I see my wife as an equal and nothing less. We do the same amount of work around the house and cook and all that. Why marry if you do not see your partner as an equal being.
My other coworkers were confused as well. Guy had weird values when it came to women.
I would guess those men are afraid the woman will curtail the man’s spending, take control of financial desicions, make larger choices about their lives, and have free will over various entertainment and social activities. Because that’s what he’d do with reversed roles. It’s fear by projection. Throw in gaslighting and obstruction and I feel like I know the demogrqphic afraid of underearning.
My wife easily does 80% or more of the housework. She makes less than half what I do. The thing is, she only works 40 hours or so a week compared to my 60 or so. I’m not glorifying my overwork, I hate that I work so much. I’m also out of town during the week days more than half the time.
I would be thrilled if she made more than me. We could hire a cleaning service and we would be so happy. This shit is insane and probably bad science.
There goes the patriarchy hurting men again.
Gotta add that my wife makes more than me and I’m sure glad she does.
The patriarchy hurts everyone, just in different ways.
Men who are uncomfortable with their wives earning more money are also probably more prone to feeling some stigma around addressing their own mental health issues
