When She Brings Home the Job Status: Wives’ Job Status, Status Leakage, and Marital Instability

Women are increasingly represented in high status organizational positions. While the advancement of women into high status roles offers them many organizational benefits, the spillover and crossover effects of these high status positions on their marital relationships remain under explored. In this study, we focus on potential costs to the marital relationship when women in high status positions hold higher job status roles than their husbands. First, we examine the spillover effects of wives’ job status relative to their husbands’ on marital instability. We suggest that this relationship is indirect and mediated by negative thoughts and feelings toward their partners’ lower job status (which we refer to as “wives’ status leakage”) and decreased relationship satisfaction. Second, we investigate plausible crossover effects on husbands’ marital instability when wives have higher job status and suggest that husbands’ spousal support can moderate the indirect relationship between wives’ job status and wives’...