Husbands with higher-earning wives more likely to use Viagra

Are you a married man who is earning less money than your wife? If so, your chances of suffering with erectile dysfunction and thus taking Viagra, Cialis or Levitra, are greater. These are the claims from a Danish study recently published in the Personality and Psychosocial Bulletin which analyses the way a man’s sexual desire is connected to cultural and social conventions.

Interestingly, the study emanates from Denmark – a country known for its highly popular political thriller ‘Borgen’, which depicts a fictional female prime minister who runs the country whilst her husband remains at home to care for their children. A role reversal on the stereotypical TV shows of years gone by usually show the wife as the housebound partner who looks after the children.

According to the research team involved in the study, Denmark is one of the most progressive countries in the world in terms of women’s rights and loss of male pride could be an even bigger issue in other areas of the world.

The authors comment: “When women out-earn their husbands, it challenges the traditional social norms of the man as economic provider and female income as supplemental.”

For the study, Danish and U.S. researchers looked at prescription data and salaries from approximately 200,000 married Danish couples between 1997 and 2006.

This analysis found that Viagra and other medications to treat male impotence (erectile dysfunction) were particularly prominent within households where the woman was the primary breadwinner.

Remarkably, the pattern was even evident in couples whereby the woman was only bringing home slightly more money than her husband.  Men were not the only one requiring some form of treatment though and their high-salaried wives seemed to be more dependent on anxiety and sleeping tablets – perhaps meaning their careers had taken their toll.

Commenting on their findings, the authors say: “Even small differences in relative income are associated with large changes in erectile dysfunction medication usage when they shift the marriage from a male to a female breadwinner.”

Perhaps intriguingly, the trend was not apparent for couples where the wife had been the bigger earner at the beginning of the relationship.  Instead, it was seen in those in which the female had developed a bigger salary than the male during the course of their relationship – suggesting that the men may have had felt a dent to their pride and self-esteem. Stress, depression and other such similar problems are all known to be just some of the causes of erectile dysfunction.

In addition, researchers also discovered that a salary disparity in roughly £10,000 favouring the woman, doubled the chance of the man using Viagra.

Concluding their study, the authors state: “We in no way suggest that the trend towards female breadwinners is socially harmful; greater equality and opportunity for women present undeniable economic and social benefits. Nor do we argue that all men will respond to upward income comparisons negatively; many husbands are proud of and attracted to high-earning wives. Yet recent evidence suggests that gender roles have changed little over the past 20 years. If social norms against female breadwinners continue to be strong, increasing female income will produce real costs in marriage, including the anxiety, insomnia and erectile dysfunction identified here.”