14 DAY TRIAL // Sociologists have found that a wife's happiness is largely dependent of three factors. In the order of their importance they are: the husband's emotional commitment, whether the husband is earning more money than her, and the fair sharing of household tasks.
The scientists surveyed 5,000 couples across United States. They were surprised especially by the second factor as they found that it was relevant even in case of women who declared themselves committed to the idea of gender equality. Researchers found that when the husband provided more than 68% of the family's total earnings their wives were usually happier - given that he was also perceived as emotionally committed.
"Regardless of what married women say they believe about gender, they tend to have happier marriages when their husband is a good provider - provided that he is also emotionally engaged," said W. Bradford Wilcox from the University of Virginia. "I was very surprised to find that even egalitarian-minded women are happier when their marriages are organized along more gendered lines."
The fair division of household work also proved to be an important factor. However, "fair" was not perceived by the women as synonymous with "equal". In fact, most of the women who were happy and considered the household work sharing as fair performed the majority of household everyday tasks themselves. However, this was nonetheless perceived as fair because the husbands acted more as providers.
"Wives are surely sensitive to imbalances in routine tasks and efforts, as almost all research shows. However, we find that they are more concerned with their husband's investments in the emotional content of the marriage," said study team member Steven Nock, a professor of sociology at University of Virginia. "We interpret our results to suggest that partners need to pay more attention to how their partners feel about their relationship and about marriage generally because equality does not necessarily produce equity."
Thus, the present study showed that although money is important for happiness, what is more important is that the husband expresses his love and support. Somewhat surprisingly the study also showed that women in traditional roles are happier than women in more contemporary roles. This is despite the fact that only around a third of Americans still embrace such traditional division of labor.
It would be interesting to compare this study on an analogous studies conducted in other part of the world, such as Europe or in Japan, to see whether there are any differences. Unfortunately, I haven't found any. If anyone knows of such studies I would sure appreciate the information.