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In recent decades, the financial elite have seen their economic resources grow significantly, while the income and wealth of other households have stagnated. The financial elite includes couples who are super-rich (top one percent), rich (the 90th–99th percentile), and upper-middle class (the 80th–89th percentile). Gendered work–family arrangements in top economic groups may contribute to inequality—particularly to wealth accumulation among the elite—but relatively little is known about how these couples divide paid and unpaid work or the extent to which their arrangements differ from other couples. In this study, we uncover novel work and family patterns and trends in the most economically powerful families in the United States. We use the Survey of Consumer Finances (1989–2019) to compare the household division of labor across income and wealth groups and over time, with a focus on financial elites. We find stark contrasts between super-rich couples and other couples in the division of labor. Specifically, super-rich couples are much more likely than all other couples, including rich and upper-middle class couples, to have a traditional male breadwinner–female homemaker/caregiver arrangement. Importantly, the striking patterns of traditional arrangements in the top one percent have not changed in 30 years and, as we uncover, appear to be driven by a couple's wealth rather than income. These findings suggest that work–family arrangements may be an integral component of economic and gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on elites experienced a resurgence in sociology over a decade ago, but this work was largely gender neutral. Recently, a body of work on elite women and gender dynamics in elite families emerged and is growing rapidly. We propose here that gendered processes are critical for understanding the reproduction of elite privilege and inequality and highlight three subjects that dominate contemporary literature in this area. First, we address who counts as an elite and gender differences in pathways to the elite. Second, we discuss elite family dynamics and the mechanisms that create traditional gender divisions of labor in elite households. Third, we underscore the significant power that elites have and discuss gender differences in the sources of power. We conclude by identifying areas for future directions, including honing empirical and theoretical understandings of the complex relationship between gender and rising class inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines how overwork and traditional household specialization—defined as households with one dedicated female homemaker and one dedicated male breadwinner—are associated with wealth across socioeconomic strata. Background: Although overwork and household specialization are clearly associated with income, less is known about how these behaviors affect household wealth. Household wealth is only moderately correlated with household income and is influenced by many factors that do not affect income, suggesting that overwork and specialization have different associations with wealth than with income. Moreover, because wealth is so unevenly distributed, overwork and specialization likely have different associations with wealth across socioeconomic strata. Method: With data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, a nationally representative survey of households that includes an oversample of high‐wealth households, the authors estimate unconditional quantile regression models to investigate how overwork and household specialization are associated with household wealth across socioeconomic strata and over time. Results: Overwork has the greatest absolute benefits at the top of the wealth distribution but the greatest relative benefits in lower portions of the wealth distribution. Specialization yields distinct advantages for high‐wealth households that have grown over time, whereas specialization comes with trade‐offs for low‐wealth households that outweigh its benefits. Conclusion: The financial trade‐offs associated with overwork and specialization vary considerably across the wealth distribution. Contrary to findings in income‐based research, overwork premiums appear most crucial to the financial well‐being of underprivileged households, whereas specialization premiums are evident only for the economic elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research documents the importance of studying households in the top one percent of U.S. income distribution because they control enormous resources. However, little is known about whose income—men's or women's—is primarily responsible for pushing households into the one percent and whether women have individual pathways to earning one percent status based on their income. Using the 1995 to 2016 Surveys of Consumer Finances, we analyze gender income patterns in the one percent. Results show that women's income is sufficient for one percent status in only 1 in 20 of all elite households. Although self-employment and higher education increase the likelihood that women will personally earn sufficient income for one percent status, marrying a man with good income prospects is a woman's main route to the one percent. In contrast, men's one percent status is most closely associated with their own characteristics (self-employment and higher education). Importantly, the gender gap in personally earning one percent income has not narrowed since the mid- to late-1990s, indicating another area in which gender progress has stalled. This research suggests that men retain most of the primary breadwinning positions in top income households and that a financial glass ceiling remains firmly intact at the one percent level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing inequality has heightened awareness of those at the top of the income and wealth distributions, and researchers are beginning to acknowledge the need for a way to identify top households that simultaneously accounts for their income and net worth. We contribute to the literatures on top income and wealth households by introducing a measure of top status that includes a larger number of affluent households and that explicitly accounts for the interrelationship between income and wealth. Our innovation is to start with both income and wealth holders and to divide the top into three groups: those who are top income only, those who are top net worth only, and those who are at the top of both distributions (the double one percent). Our results show that the top three groups are unique financially and demographically in ways that inform understanding of inequality and the processes that lead to membership in top income and wealth positions. Perhaps most importantly, our results identify those who are merely elite and those who occupy even more exclusive, or super elite, positions at the top of both the income and wealth distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]