Female Breadwinners’ Health and Well-Being: How Do Individual Gender Attitudes and Societal Gender Culture Matter?

It is well-known that female breadwinning is negatively associated with women’s health and well-being, and that this negative relationship tends to be moderated by individuals’ gender attitudes. This study aims to contribute to the existing literature in two ways. First, this study uses a more direct measure of individuals’ aversion to female breadwinning. Second, this study considers societal gender culture beyond individual gender attitudes by applying the gender deviation and gender social stress frameworks from a multilevel perspective. Applying linear regression models with country-fixed effects to approximately 24,045 married women in 61 countries from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey, this study shows that female breadwinners are disadvantaged in their subjective well-being compared to those not serving as breadwinners only when they are averse to female breadwinning. This study also finds that the adverse health and well-being outcomes associated with being the female breadwinner are accentuated in countries with stronger societal aversion to female breadwinning, net of individual gender attitudes.