Women receive 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees, according to ‘The Shriver Report, A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything. Furthermore black women are twice as likely to go to college.
“In the last 20 to 30 years there are more [black women] with college degrees than black men. It’s only natural that more black women will earn more than their spouses, if they are marrying within their race… a lot of black women have adjusted their expectations,” says Valorie Burton.
The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics saw a jump in “affluent women returning to the labor force,” according to a New York Times article that states that the percentage of college educated women living with their spouse who were working or looking for work has increased by over two percent from 2007 to 2009.
“What happened is 78 percent of the people who lost their jobs in the recession are men,” said Joan Williams, director of the Center for Work Life Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, NYTimes.com reports. “Some women who expected to take a long time out of the work force suddenly felt they needed to re-enter, in some cases more more quickly than they expected.”
According to MSNBC.com, some women who have put on the main breadwinner hat, have a hard time relinquishing control over the household duties.
“Some women are controlling, but some women really want some help and they’re just not getting it,” explains Valorie Burton, a life coach.