288 SHARES Share Tweet

The University of Connecticut recently conducted a study which was released on August 19th. The study proved that male breadwinners are not as healthy and face more psychological challenges than female breadwinners.

How do gender roles hurt Men?

The study which was presented at the 111th annual American Sociological Association meeting by a renowned sociologist, Christin Munsch. It was revealed that typical gender roles affect men and women differently. A man who is expected to be the breadwinner of the family, and is making provision for his family with little or no help from his spouse suffers critical negative challenges.

Researchers came to this conclusion after they had crucially analyzed data accumulated from the National Longitudinal Survey for youths. The survey tracked young people between 1997 and 2011. They narrowed their data down to only married and straight participants and compared different aspects of the participant’s lives. Facets like wellbeing, job history, income, and other important factors were considered. After which they found out that men and women have contrasting reactions when it comes to handling their economic responsibilities. When a woman earns more money than her spouse, her psychological health improves, but when men provided income solely, their physical, as well as psychological health, deteriorated when compared to the time both spouses distributed finances equally.

These differences were directly related to rigid societal expectations. Just as men are applauded for carrying out basic chores while women still do the bulk of house chores, women are praised when they earn more than their spouses. Although statistics has shown that a total 40% of household’s record women as primary earners in the United States alone, It is still considered as a big deal, especially when you deliberate on the continual wage gap between male and female workers in the United States.