為什么女人比男人掙得多？

????美國的女性未來有望成為養家糊口的主力軍。

????如果女性的經濟實力繼續如期增長，這個轉折點將出現在一代人之后。這個趨勢十分引人矚目，就連《時代》雜志（TIME）最新一期的封面故事也是談的這個話題。

????“近40%的在職女性掙得比他們的丈夫還多，”《更富有的性別》（The Richer Sex）的作者莉莎?芒迪在《時代》和《財富》雜志（Fortune）共同組織的紐約早餐會上說?！陡挥械男詣e》既是《時代》本期的封面故事，也是芒迪新近出版的一本書。

????出席早餐會的嘉賓都是《財富》雜志最具影響力的女性：她們拿著高達百萬的薪水；她們的家庭實行女主外，男主內；她們是各自世界里的“主宰者”。芒迪的研究顯示，女性在很多地方都掙得比男性多。比方說，在大多數的美國大都市，20多歲、無子女的單身女性收入中值高于同齡男性。而在達拉斯和亞特蘭大，年輕男性每掙1美元，年輕女性平均分別可以掙到1.18美元和1.14美元。

????為什么會出現這樣急劇的轉變？芒迪說，五十年前，避孕藥開始逐步應用，幫助推動了這一趨勢：它能夠延遲結婚和養育孩子的時間，因此，女性開始集中精力發展事業。美國向服務型經濟的轉變也有利于大學畢業生就業，而女性在大學中所占比例在日益提高。如今，女性已占到美國大學在校人數的60%，獲得碩士和博士學位的人數甚至超過了男性。

????美國超過一半的家庭中，女性將賺得比男性還多。有什么能夠阻止這個趨勢嗎？“我看不到有什么能阻止這一趨勢，”為《華盛頓郵報》（Washington Post）撰寫文章的芒迪在早餐會上告訴 《時代》雜志執行編輯南希?吉布斯說。她說，有些行業，像獸醫，從業者中的女性太多了，以至于現在鮮有男性進入。她將這一現象稱為“性別污染”。未來25年，法律、醫學等行業也很可能被女性占據主導地位。

????而且還有一個事實，當今美國有41%的嬰兒為單身媽媽所生。雖然芒迪沒有找到可信的數據說明這些未婚媽媽中同居或獨居的比例各占多少，但“我們從人口統計中獲知的一個數據是，當前約25%的18歲以下孩子是同母親、而不是父親生活在一起?！?/p>

????這不禁要讓參加早餐會的最具影響力女性們以及我要問一個問題：在一個女性不再需要別人供養的世界里，從小被教育應身擔養家糊口責任的男性能開心生活嗎？作為一名樂觀主義者，芒迪認為，很多男性將卸下養家糊口的重任。（證據之一：雖然當今社會的整體結婚率在呈現下降的趨勢，但高收入女性的結婚率卻在上升。）而且，她認為，社會將適應“男子氣定義的擴展”。男子氣將既包括狩獵，也包括做飯，既包括打高爾夫球，也包括帶孩子。

????“我們總是太急于下結論，認為男子氣已經消失，”曼迪在她的《時代》封面文章中寫到。如果世界按照她希望的方式演進，男性和女性都會變得更加富有，只是意義各有不同。

????譯者：老榆木

????Women are poised to become America's biggest breadwinners.

????The tipping point is a generation away, assuming women's economic power keeps rising as expected. But already, the trend is stunning enough that TIME made it the subject of its current cover.

????"Almost 40% of working wives out-earn their husbands," noted Liza Mundy, author of "The Richer Sex"--both the cover story and a new book that goes by the same title--at a breakfast in New York City, hosted by TIME and Fortune.

????The audience was Fortune's Most Powerful Women: female Masters of the Universe who have seven-figure salaries and househusbands. Mundy's research shows that women are out-earning men all around. In most U.S. metro areas, for instance, single childless women in their 20s have higher median incomes than their male peers. In Dallas and Atlanta, the average young woman earns $1.18 and $1.14, respectively, for every dollar earned by a male.

????Why such rapid advancement? The Pill, Mundy said, helped spark the trend 50 years ago: Newly able to delay marriage and childbearing, women began focusing on their careers. America's shift to a service economy also favors college grads, who increasingly tend to be female. Today, women make up 60% of U.S. college classes and earn more masters and doctorate degrees than men.

????What can stop women from out-earning men in more than 50% of U.S. households? "Nothing that I can see," Mundy, who writes for the Washington Post (WPO), told TIME Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs at the breakfast. Some industries, such as veterinary medicine, are so populated with women that few men are now entering them, she said. She calls the phenomenon "gender pollution." In 25 years, law and medicine may well be female-dominated.

????And there's the fact that 41% of babies in the U.S. today are born to single mothers. While Mundy found no reliable data on how many of these unmarried moms are cohabiting vs. living alone, "what we do know from the census is that currently about 25% of children under 18 live with a mother and not a father."

????This got me and the powerful women at my breakfast table asking: Can men, bred to be providers, live happily in a world where women may not need them for support? An optimist, Mundy believes that many men will cede control as breadwinners.(One bit of evidence: Marriage rates for high-income women are rising, as overall marriage rates decline.) Moreover, society will adapt by "broadening the definition of masculinity," she contends. Masculinity will include cooking as well as hunting, and child care as well as golf.

????"We are always too quick to think masculinity is finished," Mundy writes in her TIME cover story. If the evolution plays out as she hopes, both men and women will become richer in their own ways.