PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Binder, Ariel J.
AU  - Lam, David
TI  - Is There a Male-Breadwinner Norm? The Hazards of Inferring Preferences from Marriage Market Outcomes
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.58.2.0320-10803R1
DP  - 2022 Nov 01
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 1885--1914
VI  - 57
IP  - 6
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/6/1885.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/6/1885.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2022 Nov 01; 57
AB  - We find that distributions of spousal earnings gaps provide no identifying information for the male-breadwinner norm, nor such a norm’s consequences for gender inequality. First, we show that simple marital matching models— without norm-related assumptions—closely replicate U.S. distributions of wife-husband earnings gaps. Second, we show that the discontinuity in this distribution as wives start to outearn husbands reflects not breadwinner norms, but rather a point mass of equal-earning couples. We conclude by arguing that the point mass may also threaten other tests of the male breadwinner hypothesis and proposing several robustness checks that future research should utilize.