Key points
- Traditional marital models involve men working to support his family.
- Contemporary financial realities include more women than men in the workforce.
- A stay-at-home boyfriend is viewed differently than a working husband on paternity leave.
- Working women cohabiting with unemployed boyfriends often leave for a working partner.
Many of us grew up in an era of commercials, ads, and stereotypes of men being the breadwinners and “bringing home the bacon.” Today, many women bring home the bacon, too. The surge of women in the workforce compared with men is a documented reality.[i] Some women have become the breadwinner within their own families, which is viewed as more acceptable than in generations past. This may be due to more opportunities in female-dominated professions, artificial intelligence replacing jobs, or decreased social stigma toward unemployed or between-jobs men.
Yet in contemporary times, a working woman’s role often extends beyond supporting a “house husband” who stays home temporarily to help raise children—often facilitated by formal paid paternity leave from a job. Many women support stay-at-home boyfriends—but perhaps not the long term
The Boyfriend Bed and Breakfast Model
Many contemporary young people in romantic relationships choose not to cohabit until marriage, guided by the sentiments of family, friends, and their faith. But for women who choose to support an unemployed live-in boyfriend, this arrangement affects both partners. Because in contrast to temporarily supporting a working husband who takes a break to care for young children, the “house boyfriend” model involves a woman providing board and lodging free of charge. Yet how does this arrangement affect future family planning? Is it sustainable personally and socially? And how do able-bodied men feel about this new role of dependence?
Many men embrace traditional ideas about marital and paternal responsibilities, including the role of supporter and provider. They want to be successful both personally and professionally, gainfully employed and socially satisfied. Masculine pride survives and thrives in many cases, as men endeavor to be workplace assets and a hero at home. Yet in modern expectations and trends, there are differences both culturally and socially. The stay-at-home boyfriend relationship is more common among younger couples, who are cohabitating but not married. Accordingly, when the uneven financial burden creates relational discomfort, women face the choice of whether to stay in the relationship or leave to pursue a more financially stable man.
Female Breadwinning and Relational Health
Research has examined the relational health of married couples where the wife makes more than the husband,[ii] as well as how cultural and societal circumstances affect the way a man feels about having a wife who out-earns him.[iii] Other research includes the specific example of unmarried cohabiting daters where the woman brings home the paycheck. Lacking situational permanence in the form of marriage or family responsibilities, and assuming the absence of abusive or coercive factors, working women have a choice. Instead of continuing to share hard-earned income with a stay-at-home boyfriend, they can opt to replace the unemployed partner with a working man. And according to research, many women do.
Gigi Foster and Leslie S. Stratton (2021) investigated the effects of female breadwinning on relational health and stability.[iv] They acknowledge the importance of social norms, reporting that men have been the primary breadwinners in most homes since the end of World War II, and that violations of this norm can be stressful on partnerships. In examining whether this is still the case, they reviewed more recent data from Australia and the United States, finding a more modest link between female breadwinning and relationship health and stability for mixed-gender couples than in the past. Foster and Stratton also note that problems caused by female breadwinning relationships exist mainly within couples who are cohabiting, particularly for younger people, as well as less educated men. They conclude that although their results suggest that social norms may be weakening, relationship satisfaction is still affected by “mating market dynamics.”
Regarding the applicability of their results, Foster and Stratton report evidence that in Australia, cohabiting women who out-earn their partners end up re-partnering with men who earn more than they do; this may not be true in the United States, due to different economic conditions. Yet research like this highlights the fact that working women have that opportunity, which, especially in an economy where it is increasingly challenging to make ends meet, is viewed as an attractive and often necessary option.
References
[i]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/magazine/american-women-workforce.html
[ii] See, e.g., Pluut, Helen, Remus Ilies, Petru L. Curşeu, and Krishna Savani. “The Things I Do for You… And for Myself: Dyadic and Dynamic Effects of Social Support in Dual-Earner Couples.” Journal of Business and Psychology 40, no. 6 (2025): 1337–53
[iii] Lee, Sangsoo. “Men’s and Women’s Aversion to Female Breadwinning: Linking Individual Attitudes to Macro-Level Contexts.” Social Science Research, vol. 132, no. 103233, November 2025
[iv] Foster, Gigi, and Leslie S. Stratton. “Does Female Breadwinning Make Partnerships Less Healthy or Less Stable?” Journal of Population Economics 34, no. 1 (2021): 63–96
