Boyfriend unsure of marriage? Financial incentives available...

Growing up during the midst of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s, I thought the whole thing was about equality. Everyone, regardless of their age or gender, should be treated the same.

A survey recently released by the Pew Research Center this week on the economic impact of marriage on men and women shows just how much progress has been made in the last four decades.

For centuries, marriage offered financial security for women, who, until WWII, traditionally did not work after they were married. According to the Pew study, men are increasingly getting an economic boost from marriage.

Insert sexist comment here.

Insert "commitment 'issues'" comment here.

A larger share of men today -- compared to men in 1970 -- are married to women whose education and income exceed their own. The reverse is true as well: a larger share of women are married to men with less education and income.

The study's authors cite the rapid increase of working wives over the past four decades, a period of time when women outpaced men in both education and income growth, as the cause for the reversal of fortunes for the genders.

Data from the study came from the U.S. Census. Median household income rose a whopping 60 percent between 1970 and 2007 for married men, married women and unmarried women, but rose a measly 16 percent for unmarried men.

The report looked at U.S.-born men and women aged 30-44. This age span is when typical adults have finished their education, married and launched careers. Americans in this group are the first in U.S. history to include more women than men with college degrees.

Insert crack about women being smarter than men here.

In 1970, only 4 percent of husbands had wives that earned more than they did, compared with 22 percent in 2007. I can recall this being a huge deal back in the day. A wife that earned more than her husband emasculated him, and he was known as a "kept" man.

Rock Hudson and Doris Day fought some epic battles on the silver screen over this issue. I have learned that movies with these two actually set relations between the sexes back several decades, so I wouldn't set much stock in "Pillow Talk" as a guide to your life.

In the 1960s and 1970s, inflation and children heading off to college brought my mother back into the workforce. She had been trained straight out of high school to be a nurse and worked as nurse until she began raising me and my five siblings. She re-entered the workforce in 1968, the year my brothers and I learned to cook suppers a few nights a week. Mom worked the 3 p.m. - 11 p.m. shift a few days a week. This minimized the time that a parent would be unavailable in case of an emergency.

I'm sure many of you that are boomers had similar experiences.

This process, which began in the 1970s, has accelerated to the point where both parents work out of necessity.

After I married, my wife and I chose to have her remain home with the children until they began school. Even then, she worked only part time, so she could be home when the children returned from school. We felt it was important to make the investment in our children.

I'm glad we did, but I understand the financial and societal pressures to do otherwise.

One of the more striking facts that I found in the study was that the shift in earnings coincided with the decline in the number of Americans who are married. Among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, 60 percent were married in 2007, compared with 84 percent in 1970.

If nothing else, this study will give couples -- married and unmarried alike -- something to talk about. Like the incentives car dealers offer, perhaps this study will seal the deal for those "on the fence" about marriage.

Knowledge is power, ladies.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.