Women earn the same or more than their husbands in nearly half of U.S. marriages, shattering households' reliance on male "breadwinners," Bloomberg reported April 13.
Women are the primary or sole breadwinner in 16 percent of marriages, and nearly one-third bring home roughly the same as their husbands. Combined, almost one-half of heterosexual households are more or equally reliant on the female worker, according to Pew Research Center.
Young women and Black women are more likely to earn equal to or more than their spouse. So are college graduates: Women are graduating college at higher rates than men, thus securing jobs in higher-paying fields and closing the longstanding breadwinner gap.
This doesn't negate the gender pay gap, however. (Read more about the pay gap in healthcare here.) When the wife is the only earner, households bring in about half of what families with male sole earners do. Dual-income households where women earn larger paychecks also make slightly less than those where men do. This is because married women make roughly $15,000 less per year than married men, according to the labor department.