TY - JOUR T1 - Is There a Male-Breadwinner Norm? The Hazards of Inferring Preferences from Marriage Market Outcomes JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 1885 LP - 1914 DO - 10.3368/jhr.58.2.0320-10803R1 VL - 57 IS - 6 AU - Ariel J. Binder AU - David Lam Y1 - 2022/11/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/6/1885.abstract N2 - 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. ER -