In Sweden, women joke: "The better you work, the sooner you get divorced." Scientists have found out that a woman's career success has a very high price: it significantly increases the risk of divorce. But it's not like that with men. Why?

Many people dream of combining a successful career and happiness in family life. But even in countries with equal opportunities, it is much more difficult for a female boss to successfully marry than a man in a similar situation.

Let's take, for example, Sweden, which took the first place in the ranking of gender equality among EU countries - there they provide a long leave to take care of a child, the state subsidizes kindergartens, parents can work according to a flexible schedule, etc.

Recently, Swedish economists investigated how career development affects the probability of divorce for both sexes. The result: women are much more likely to have this than men.

Scientists observed the lives of heterosexual men and women working in private companies (from 100 employees or more) and found that married women divorced twice as often as men in a similar situation within three years after promotion.

Most of the study participants had children, but they no longer lived with their parents when they decided to divorce. Therefore, the gap was not related to the difficulties of caring for a small child, the authors of the study note.
Conflicts and stressful situations arise in many couples due to social and economic changes. For example, due to the fact that the wife now has less time for joint leisure time or for housework.

Although Johanna Rickne did not study who initiated the divorce, one theory suggests that men are more difficult to promote their wives than women are to the appointment of men to managerial positions.

THE RIGHT CHOICE OF A PARTNER👫

So what should women do to mitigate the impact of their position on their relationship with their husband?

As Johanna Rickne points out, even in such egalitarian states as Sweden, women usually marry older men who earn more. This is an echo of the past, when girls dreamed of marrying a fairy-tale prince, when the ability to find a successful and rich husband was highly valued.

"However, women with a high status and income are not looking for a man with a low income who will agree to become a 'homemaker'. But if you look at the situation realistically, it is better to build an equal relationship from the very beginning," she says.

Her research in Sweden found that couples where the wife was significantly younger than the husband and took most of the parental leave (in Sweden, parents can share such leave equally) were more likely to divorce after a promotion.

Those couples where the age difference was insignificant, and the approach to caring for the child was more egalitarian, were much less likely to divorce due to the wife's career development.

POSITIVE EXAMPLES💖

38-year-old Charlotte Sundocker was appointed CEO of an international educational company in Stockholm two years after the birth of her first child.

Her partner Christian Hagman is 31 years old. In Charlotte's opinion, the fact that Christian is younger was even better. He experienced less stress (saying I'm not that successful!) because he was at a different stage in his career.

According to Charlotte, Christian belongs to a different generation, whose representatives are trying to break the stereotypes of what a man should be. He understands her workload.

But the main reason they are still together, Christian and Charlotte explain, is frank conversations about the difficulties they face.

"When she became the general director, she was absorbed by it, and that's normal, it's such a job, - says Christian Hagman. - I was sad that we communicate less often ... But she listened to me, and I did the same."