NATION Many women are now bringing home a bigger slice of bacon than men

The percentage of women earning more than their husbands is growing.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Aaron Frazier married his college sweetheart, Danielle, four years ago knowing that she out-earned him by 10,000 a year. Now, that gap is bigger.
Although Aaron's accountant salary is half the 90,000 his wife makes monitoring clinical drug trials, it doesn't cause any friction.
"I think both of us are pretty modern," said Danielle, 29.
"She does more cooking and I do more housework," said Aaron, 30, adding that if the Antioch, Tenn., couple have a baby, he will start out being the primary care-giver for their child.
Couples such as the Fraziers -- with the wife bringing home most of the bacon -- are becoming increasingly common and accepted among America's twenty- and thirtysomethings, the result of shifting educational and job market patterns, and new attitudes toward work, family and gender differences.
That could fuel a growing number of marriages in which women are the sole or primary breadwinners. Census Bureau data show that 25.3 percent of women in two-income marriages bring home the bigger paycheck, up from 17.8 percent in 1987.
Younger women, now graduating from college at higher rates than men and aggressively recruited by many employers, are becoming anything but desperate housewives. Some, including Danielle Frazier, out-earn male peers starting with their first jobs.
Much faster
The salaries of college-educated women have risen much faster than those of male graduates, up 34.4 percent since 1979 versus 21.7 percent for men, according to Catalyst, a New York-based research group.
Among twenty- and thirtysomethings, more women than men have college degrees. The gap is widest among 25- to 29-year-olds, according to the Census Bureau, with 25.5 percent of men holding a bachelor's degree as compared with 32.2 percent of women. Women now account for close to half of medical and law students, funneling them into lucrative careers as doctors and lawyers.
The Labor Department projects the education disparity will widen in coming years. Partly fueling that gap is the belief among many women that they still need to be better trained than men to succeed -- "to jump through the hoops," said Stephanie Coontz, a historian at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. "Men don't feel that as much."
Indeed, men in their 20s and 30s are increasingly comfortable being the lower-paid spouse and more willing -- eager even -- than their fathers to take on responsibility for child-rearing and household duties, surveys show. Although men overwhelmingly say they would prefer to work, a growing number have told pollsters over the last 20 years that they'd be OK with their wives supporting them.
The most recent Gallup Poll, taken in 2005, found the strongest support for that view, 27 percent. With that trend most pronounced for men younger than 50 -- at 35 percent -- even more men may opt to become the family caretaker.
"Men are saying, 'I don't mind being married to a woman who earns more than I,' and women are giving up the notion that they have to find a man who can support them," said Coontz, who has written several books on marriage and gender roles.