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Contrary to many popular beliefs, divorce is less likely when a wife earns more than her husband according to the findings of a recent academic study. In a collaborative project between the University of Leicester and the German Institute of Economic Research, 4,000 British couples were examined with the final paper concluding that couples with children were no more likely to separate or divorce if the wife was the main breadwinner. When a couple had a child or children that were aged between three and five, however, their chances of divorce fell by 80% when the female party was the higher earner. The paper’s authors, who used data from a major study that amassed information on families whose children were born in 2000, intended to examine whether there was any truth to the belief that women being ‘dependent’ on men was indeed important to the stability of familial structures. The findings of their study led them to conclude that, whilst this may have been the case previously, there is very little to no statistical evidence to suggest that this is still the case. In order to determine their findings, the authors divided subjects into three groups: couples whose earnings differed by more than 20 per cent formed two of those groups whilst the other was comprised of couples whose earnings were similar. These groups were then analysed with it being determined that it was no more likely for a couple with a higher female earner to divorce or separate than another. One of the study’s authors, Dr Shireen Kanji of Leicester University, noted that, whilst many academics in the fields of sociology and economics have frequently argued that increased financial independence amongst women will undermine the institution of marriage this is clearly not the case. Dr Kanji furthered her argument by noting that whilst it had previously been posited that one spouse working and the other remaining at home would create interdependency, that those that put forward such theories did not consider the possibility of females becoming the main earners, a joint desire for increased equality between both spouses or the need for two incomes to maintain a household and/or lifestyle could have precisely the same effect. The study’s authors did also observe that, as a couple’s first child ages, the more likely it becomes that the husband will become the family’s main earner.