If high-earning women were marrying low-earning men, the effect of increased female labor-force participation on income inequality might be positive. But that’s not happening. Instead, well-educated, well-paid women marry well-educated, well-paid men, a process sociologists have given the stunningly unromantic label of “assortative mating.” This means that the growing gaps we see in earnings are magnified in terms of household income. My colleague Gary Burtless estimates that between 10 and 16% of income inequality in the US is caused by the “growing correlation of earned incomes received by husbands and wives.”
Source: ‘Wages and wives’ are a big reason the rich are getting richer