PSU study: Only low educated men care if married women change their names

Hillary Rodham changed her name to Hillary Clinton after it was suggested her last name was one reason Bill lost his re-election bid for Arkansas governor in 1980. More than three decades later, does it still matter if married women keep their names?

Only to low educated men, according to a new study in Gender Issues by Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer, an assistant sociology professor at Portland State University.

In national survey of 1,242 people, Shafer presented a vignette of a married woman, Carol, who is working extra hours in hopes of a promotion. Her husband, Bill Cook, is feeling burdened by her absence and picking up her slack in housework. The respondents were given one of three last names for Carol: Sherman, Sherman-Cook, or Cook.

Shafer found:

• Men with a high school diploma or less view women who keep their last names as less committed wives, whose husbands should accept fewer late workdays and are more justified in divorcing them. 
• Among men with more education and all women, surname choice has little effect on perceptions of a wife’s commitment to her marriage or the standards to which she is held. 

The results are somewhat surprising but consistent with the “uneven and stalled” gender revolution, Shafer writes. “The gains women have made in the last 60 years - for example, in terms of employment and earnings - have not occurred equally across socio-economic groups or across outcomes.”