Are the men of KZN mature enough to accept not being the breadwinner?
Are men mature enough to admit they don't have to be the breadwinner?
For centuries, society has believed that men should go out and provide for their families.
READ: "If he was man enough to bring home the money we wouldn't be in this position."
It's also not as simple as just this behaviour being expected from men but women were prohibited from providing for their families in any of the same ways men were.
Never mind every household's own personal feelings on the matter of equality, women have been struggling to close the pay gap and find equal opportunities in the workplace for just as long.
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As gender roles, society's perception of gender and societal norms change, more women are claiming their space at work and men are taking the stay-at-home gigs very seriously.
There is no such thing as the traditional male-breadwinner family. It was a late-arriving, short-lived aberration in the history of the world, and it’s over. We need to move on.
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But as it turns out, being a good provider isn't the walk in the park we all think it is. During the recent presentation of a new study at the American Sociological Association’s annual conference, 15 years of data revealed some shocking breadwinning facts.
The study consulted married people between the ages of 18 and 32 and collected the data for 15 years and this is what they gathered:
The data definitely seems to indicate that, in general, as men take responsibility for greater and greater shares of the couple’s pooled income, they experience declines in their psychological well-being and health.
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Shockingly enough, while men want to continue the fight to remain the big moneymaker and take responsibility for putting food on the table, the data suggest that men are at their lowest psychologically when they are the sole provider in the home.
The happiness scores fell 5% lower and the health scores dropped 3.5% as compared to when both partners chip in equally.
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In fact, women do even better when they are having to carry a heavier financial burden. When they earn less, they feel worse but when they earn more their psychological well-being rises. Also unlike men, a women's health is not affected by her earning status within the family.
What the study also ultimately concluded was that humans are more likely to feel more unhappy when there is an expectation appointed to them because of what gender they are.
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Millennials are also proving to be the first generation that will dispense the "guy-as-provider" identity completely and are making a conscious effort to focus on equality in relationships.
When it comes to the perception we have about breadwinners and the role they play, how do we feel about not fulfilling this specific role and more specifically: are the men okay?
Stacey and her fellow ECR leading ladies had a very in-depth discussion about the topic of money and how they personally feel about having a man provide for them:
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