According to this research, societal expectations about the roles played in married-couple relationships may be a factor in what people report for their earnings. Social norms can drive expectations and behavior, including how we report information about ourselves to others.

“We made a critical finding that adds to the understanding of gender norms and the quality of income statistics, in particular wage gaps among different-sex married couples,” said Marta Murray-Close, economist at the Census Bureau and coauthor of the study.

Researchers used survey responses from the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement. They found that when wives earn more than their husbands, husbands report earnings that are 2.9 percentage points higher when they respond to surveys compared to what’s in their tax filings.