Husbands who don’t help with housework earn higher incomes

A new study from the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, offers a silver lining for overworked wives everywhere: Husbands who don’t help out with housework tend to bring home larger salaries than those who do.

“Professionals often publicly thank their spouses when receiving achievement awards or earning promotion,” the study’s lead author, Brittany Solomon, said. “And, at least for disagreeable men, our findings quantify the truth behind this sentiment.”

“Disagreeable” men (the phrase used by the researchers) earned more money than everyone else in the study, which looked at nearly 2,000 subjects. The study defined disagreeableness as being cold, competitive, uncooperative, and self-interested.

The implications are that workplaces actually reward men who are selfish and don’t work well on a team, and that bosses should start taking into account employees’ work-life balances if they want naturally cooperative workers to succeed.

More findings about narcissists

Other studies have found that narcissists generally achieve more occupational success than peers who don’t exhibit antisocial behavior, but the traits that help them as workers may also make them less attentive at home. The authors of the paper, published in the journal Personnel Psychology, were quick to note that unhelpful, disagreeable husbands owed their high earnings to several factors outside of their temperament and dedication to their jobs.

In two separate studies performed by the same researchers, heterosexual, married men who had traditional ideas about gender roles and whose wives took care of all or nearly all domestic responsibilities secured higher earnings. Single disagreeable men did not seem to enjoy the same career benefits. Neither did men in same-sex marriages or men who shared the burden of housework with their spouses.

“Disagreeable men tend to earn more money relative to their more agreeable male counterparts because they are more self-interested and less helpful to their wives at home, which allows for greater job involvement and, ultimately, higher pay,” Solomon, an assistant professor at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said.

Fairer at home could be better for work

The authors worried that many work cultures create an environment that encourages workers to prioritize output above all else.

To make sure team players get ahead, too, they suggested that organizations could consider offering incentives like child-care programs and home maintenance services to help married couples balance career goals and domestic responsibilities. And they could try to combat the social pressure men feel to not help out at home.

“Some research shows that men are stigmatized for taking advantage of flex work policies,” Solomon said. “Changing the organizational culture, in addition to implementing such policies, may influence calculations within a marriage or partnership about whose career should take priority and who should do more at home.”