Financial dependency on men: Have women born in 1958 broken free?

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines some evidence from the 1958 NCDS birth cohort about what is actually happening to financial imbalance within British couples. The increased proportion of women in the labour force is not uniformly matched by an equivalent increase in the share of women's earnings in the household budget. While women approach half of the labour force, few women in couples of this, or other, generations bring home as much as half the total cash. A minority have successfully combined a continuous full‐time career with purchased childcare and an equal contribution to the couple's cash, but many more still leave the labour market on motherhood and return to part‐time jobs. They remain, at least partially, financially dependent on pooling income with their partners, and, eventually, on derived benefits such as widows’ pensions. Dual career couples are matched by another minority, where neither has a job, the woman is doubly dependent on the man's state benefits, and arguably trapped by them into fur...