She Works, He Doesn't

Feminists see the emerging era--when it's no longer the default choice that the kids will be watched by Mom, the nanny or a day-care center--as a necessary evolution. "The first half [of the feminist vision] was to liberate women from domestic servitude," says Suzanne Levine, a founding editor of Ms. Magazine and author of "Father Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First." "The second half was to integrate the men back into the family." But while many dads now help with 3 a.m. feedings, it hasn't led to wholesale acceptance of wives as breadwinners. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 41 percent of Americans agreed that "it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family." One in four said it was "generally not acceptable" for a woman to be the major wage earner in a marriage.

While those attitudes may fester, the data suggest women's economic power will only grow. And as you plot out those trend lines a few --decades, it's easy to imagine more-dramatic implications. For example, conventional wisdom is that once a man earns a certain income, whether his wife works becomes optional. Does that mean work will become equally optional for men whose wives bring home big paychecks? For many families, it appears so: in the NEWSWEEK Poll, 34 percent of men said that in their relationship, if the wife landed a big pay raise, the husband would consider not working or reducing his hours.

Here's a related twist: we know many women consider a man's earning potential when choosing spouses. (Why do you think they're hiding the bachelors' occupations on "Mr. Personality"?) But as women's earnings rise, are more men paying attention to women's earning potential when they choose a mate? Yes, says University of Wisconsin economist Maria Cancian, who believes high-earning women are starting to be seen by men as a "good catch." As for high-powered women, Cancian wonders if their view may be changing, too. "Are we now in a situation where very career-oriented women might look for husbands that are less career oriented" and better equipped to nurture the kids full time?

Those questions will take years to answer. In the short term, there are aspects of this role reversal that are less cheery. By all accounts, the shift to wife as breadwinner is far more difficult when it's forced on couples because of Hubby's layoff. Predicting --which families will suffer most is largely intuitive. Men who identify closely with their jobs or believe in traditional gender roles are hit hardest. Younger couples--the ones who grew up listening to "Free to Be... You and Me" while their moms were at work--tend to take the turnabout more in stride (sidebar, below).

But there are also wrinkles that aren't obvious. Working-class families may suffer less psychic whiplash because lesser-skilled workers have always been more susceptible to layoffs. As layoffs have crept up into white-collar ranks, they've taken more families by surprise. "When transitions are unexpected, then people are more likely to think it's somehow your fault, and that compounds the problems," says University of California, Berkeley, marriage researcher Philip Cowan.

Sherie Zebrowski was so unprepared for her husband Sean's layoff that she thought he was kidding when he came home with the news. The $80,000-plus-commissions he'd earned as an Austin, Texas, software salesman had allowed Sherie to care for their two children, train for triathlons and teach Sunday school. After his layoff two years ago, Sean spent months unsuccessfully looking for a similar job. For a while, the couple just hung on. "I tried not to fault him--he was good at what he did," Sherie says. "But after a while, you can't help but question: Is he looking in the right places? Could he be doing more?" To pay the bills, Sherie began turning her hobby--decorative painting--into a business. Soon she was working 10-hour days--and doing most of the housework while Sean surfed the Web. When their parish priest asked how they were doing, Sherie burst into tears. She told the priest: "I understand how the stress of being unemployed can break up a marriage."