Marriage is such an indelible part of our lives, but in the past there has been a disparity between what men and women earn; more specifically, husbands typically earned more than their wives. But, due to the advancements of equality and the hard work of many powerful voices advocating for equal pay, those days are far behind us - or, at least, quickly fast-approaching. In fact, it's now becoming increasingly common for husbands and wives to earn about the same.
This phenomenon is best less considered a nationwide trend, and better contextualized instead as growing tides of change. According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center - a leading nonprofit that prides itself on non-partisanship - in roughly 24% of marriages where both partners are employed, the husband and wife earn about the same amount. This is up from about 18% of such couples back in 2000. That's not to say that this is fully replacing any gender-based financial power imbalances - as even with this increased parity, more women still tend to make less than their counterparts (hence why this dynamic isn't seen in more cases). It's a tricky thing – tempting to use statistics as signposts to deduce our future, while slightly better at spelling out our present. We can't forget how essential it is that we are conscious of the present in order to enact our future.
But why this slight increase? Is it just a happy accident? Or, is there something else going on here? It can be difficult to determine exactly why this dynamic is trending in such a direction. Though one especially likely possibility may be the recent advances of technology and telecommunications which have allowed people to be more location independent; resulting in rising job opportunities across a variety of industries that previously had much fewer in number.
But whichever way you spin it, it's clear that there are larger undercurrents of change happening here – thank goodness! We're reaching a point where equal opportunity stands bone-firm amidst turbulent seas of instability, proving that its harbor is capable of being opened much wider. And soon it'll become second nature to be able to talk about couples having equal economic opportunities without feeling like it's something out of the ordinary.
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