Wives Often Have More Education Than Their Husbands, and That's Perfectly OK

Wives Often Have More Education Than Their Husbands, and That's Perfectly OK

What new research says about your college degree and your divorce rate

New research confirms something that we hope will be news to no one: Having more education than your husband will not make you more likely to split up, according to a recent study in the American Sociological Review.

The new research looked at marriage data from decades past and compared that with more recent stats. They found that, before the 1980s, husbands almost always had higher education levels than their wives. And at that time, in couples where the roles were reversed (and the wives had more education than their husbands) there was a higher rate of divorce.  

But luckily, times have changed. For those married between 2005 to 2009, women are more likely to have higher education levels then their husbands, and these couples are no more likely to get divorced than other couples. So forget about that notion that you have to marry a partner with equal or higher levels of education—you just do you.

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There are probably a million reasons for this shift in the last few decades, including that couples tend to marry a little bit later (which leaves more time for either partner to obtain higher levels of education), plus women in general are now more likely to earn college degrees than men, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. With this being the new norm in the last few decades, it's simply outdated to assume that relationships wouldn't fare as well when the wife has more education than her husband.

Plus, having more education in general is linked with a lower divorce rate.  And another recent study found that that couples with young children are less likely to split up if the wife earns more than her husband.

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So let's bury that myth that marriages work better when wives aren't the more educated, successful partner in the match. According to science, that's so three decades ago.  

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