In a quarter of French couples, the woman earns more than the man. Households more exposed to the “risk” of separation, according to a recent study. In question? The difficulty in talking about money between spouses, a feeling of inferiority of the one who receives the lowest salary, and undoubtedly, the weight of gender norms.
The scene took place ten years ago but Garance (1) remembers it as if it were yesterday. “I can still see where we were sitting, him and I,” breathes this thirty-year-old Parisian, responsible for digital strategy. He is her ex-husband, ten years older, whom she met when she was 23, when she joined the company where he had worked for ten years. “Not very ambitious, he liked to work short hours and little more, with no desire to progress.” Two years later, when she changed employers, Garance landed an important mission, the first milestone in her professional rise. “My salary, really not great,” she remembers, “made a nice jump, up to €2,800 net per month.”
Or €40 more than her husband at the time. 40 small euros which are enough to make him and the entire structure of their relationship falter. “I tell him about my promotion, very proud of myself because it seemed crazy to me, and I see that something in him is breaking,” she describes. He immediately replied…
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