Both men and women are more likely to cheat on their spouses¹ the more economically dependent they are on them, according to a new study. "You would think that people would not want to 'bite the hand that feeds them' so to speak, but that is not what my research shows," said study author Christin L. Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. "Instead, the findings indicate people like feeling relatively² equal in their relationships. People don't like to feel dependent on another person."

 

According to Munsch, in an average year, there is about a 5 percent chance that women who are completely economically dependent on their husbands will cheat, whereas there is about a 15 percent chance that men who are entirely³ economically dependent on their wives will have an affair.

 

Although Munsch found that economic dependency increases the likelihood of engaging in infidelity for both men and women, there appears to be something that makes men who are not primary breadwinners even more prone⁴ to cheating compared to women who are not primary breadwinners. 

 

"Extramarital sex allows men undergoing a masculinity threat -- that is not being primary breadwinners, as is culturally expected -- to engage in behavior culturally associated with masculinity," Munsch said. "For men, especially young men, the dominant⁶ definition of masculinity is scripted in terms of sexual virility⁷ and conquest, particularly with respect to multiple sex partners. Thus, engaging in infidelity may be a way of reestablishing threatened masculinity. Simultaneously⁸, infidelity allows threatened men to distance themselves from, and perhaps punish, their higher earning spouses." 

 

Titled, "Her Support, His Support: Money, Masculinity, and Marital⁵ Infidelity," the study, which appears in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, relies on data from the 2001 through 2011 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and considers more than 2,750 married people who range in age from 18 to 32-years-old. 

 

While Munsch found similarities in the way that men and women respond to being economically dependent, she discovered that men and women who are primary breadwinners in their marriages behave very differently. For women, the more they "breadwin" -- that is, the larger their percentage of the combined marital income -- the less likely they are to cheat.

 

"Women who out earn their husbands challenge the status quo," said Munsch, who noted⁹ that women are least likely to engage in infidelity when they make 100 percent of a couples' total income. "Previous research finds that women who are primary breadwinners are acutely aware of the ways in which they deviate¹⁰ from the cultural expectation that equates¹¹ men with breadwinning. Consequently, previous research finds these women suffer from increased anxiety and insomnia¹² and engage in what sociologists call 'deviance neutralization¹³ behaviors.'"

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