The Political Economy of Hegemonic Masculinity: Race, Income, and Housework in the United States

Sarah Small

Review of Radical Political Economics, 2023, vol. 55, issue 1, 26-46

Abstract: Macrocultural dynamics of hegemonic masculinity complicate microeconomic negotiations. In this article, I examine hegemonic masculinity as an explanatory framework to understand how gendered work in households differs along income and race dimensions. I use Panel Study of Income Dynamics data to demonstrate how men of different race and income groups respond to their female partner out-earning them, an economic threat to masculinity. Results indicate that upper-income couples with White men have a strong aversion to the situation in which a woman out-earns her male partner. Middle-income White men follow suit, but lower-income White men, and Black men in most income groups, do not. I discuss how these findings relate directly to power, patriarchy, and the hegemonic nature of hegemonic masculinity. JEL Classification : B54, J15, J16

Keywords: feminist economics; race; gender; housework; hegemonic masculinity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/04866134221132340 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:55:y:2023:i:1:p:26-46

DOI: 10.1177/04866134221132340

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Radical Political Economics from Union for Radical Political Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().