15 Cities Where Women Outearn Their Husbands Here's where women are most likely to be their household's breadwinner. This story originally appeared on Self. While still the minority among married-couple households, wives who outearn their husbands have become much more commonplace. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wives are the breadwinners in 29 percent of dual-income married couples. While wives are much more likely to outearn their husbands today than they were several decades ago, the share of female breadwinners varies on a geographic basis due to cultural and demographic differences. At the regional level, female breadwinners tend to be more common in the Northeast, where education levels are highest. Vermont and New York are home to the largest share of wives who outearn their husbands, at 36.2 and 32.9 percent, respectively. Utah and Idaho have the lowest percentages of wives who earn more than their husbands, at just 22.4 and 24.7 percent, respectively.