When Carrie was in her twenties, she did social work.
She was earning enough to pay all her expenses and put something aside in a savings account.
Her longtime partner was a graduate student who worked a part-time job, and Keri, as the family's main breadwinner, paid most of their joint bills.
But when he graduated and got a job offer, things changed.
"He ended up getting a job on the other side of the country," says Carey, now in his 30s, from Chicago.
"I quit my job and moved in with him.
"Even though I was really satisfied with my career and life, I practically gave up everything for the sake of a city where I didn't know anyone and where I couldn't find a job."
Over time, Keri realized that she had completely put the emphasis on her partner's career over her own - to her own detriment.
She felt that the entire move set back her career and earnings by several years.
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Although women outnumber men in education, and, in the US, make up almost half of the total workforce, many women still share the same experience with Keri.
Researchers for Deloitte's Women at Work 2023 survey surveyed 5.000 women in 10 countries, 98 percent of whom were in heterosexual relationships.
According to the data, almost 40 percent of respondents say that their partners' careers took precedence.
They cited several reasons for this, ranging from financial and social factors to the burden of childcare and household responsibilities.
But the biggest reason women in the Deloitte survey gave for prioritizing their partner's career over their own was that their male partners made more money.
This is not surprising when you consider that, worldwide, some data show that women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.
"Of course, there will be some who say, 'Well, then that person earns more,'" says London-based Emma Codd, global diversity, equality and inclusion officer at Deloitte.
"Especially when times are tough, you can find yourself in a situation where the person who earns less has to say, 'Well, my career is going to have to take a bit of a back seat now,' whether it's a conscious or unconscious decision."
In any case, that decision is rational, adds Pamela Stone, professor of sociology at Hunter College in New York, who co-authored the books Quitting your job? Why women really give up their careers and come home i Return? What really happens when mothers go back to work?
Stone says that many of the women she interviewed for these two books "experienced men going full speed ahead."
And so, when it comes to making their own internal decisions, they would say things like, "I knew he would be able to make a lot more money than me."
The choice becomes much less emotional, Stone says, when it comes down to dollars and cents.
"It's not that women don't have a vision or that they're not liberal, progressive and so on," she says.
"It's about who has a better chance. If you were to bet, you would bet that the man's career will be more successful, because there is gender discrimination in the market."
But this kind of bet opens up a vicious cycle, Code says, because women who put their own careers on the line are less likely to reach their full earning potential or match their partner's income.
"The reality is that it would be great to see more women as the main breadwinners in the family," says Kod.
"But if so many women don't put their own careers first, then it's highly likely that their chances of becoming the main breadwinner in the family are diminished."
But even if a woman's income starts to surpass her husband's, it is not yet a guarantee that her career will become primary.
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In many of the cases cited in the Deloitte report, women who earned more still subordinated their own work to their partner's work.
Every tenth woman said that she was the main breadwinner in the relationship, and yet 20 percent of that group still felt pressure to make her partner's career the primary focus.
"That number stunned us," says Kod.
"Can a cultural element explain this phenomenon? Who knows."
This could mean that women are not putting their husbands' careers ahead of their own just for money: social pressure and expectations are also at play.
In a multigenerational study, Stone and her colleagues interviewed more than 25.000 graduates of Harvard Business School.
They found that while the "vast majority" of women expected an equal marriage in which both careers were equally important, more than half of the men surveyed, from boomers to millennials, expected their careers to take precedence.
Men were expected to be the "breadwinners", which is actually a term that implies much more than just the person who earns more.
Research data indicate that men's mental health is related to whether they earn more than their partners.
A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that when you are the only breadwinner in the family, it creates anxiety, but that the level of stress also increased when the wife's income grew 50 percent above the total income of the household.
When men see themselves as the breadwinner, some research shows that they have less respect for their wives' careers and are less flexible with them.
And it's a vicious cycle, says Stone, who points out that when a man devalues his wife's career, it leaves little room for her to match or surpass his.
But male partners in heterosexual relationships aren't the only ones who keep the vicious cycle alive.
Sometimes women also play a role in devaluing their own careers; intentionally, to keep up with the relationship, or unintentionally, because the balance is tipped to the other side without them even realizing it.
In Keri's relationship, she says it became apparent that her partner was happy with the imbalance they had fallen into, with her career on the sidelines.
She remembers him telling her, "I love taking care of you," a sentiment she knows was well-intentioned, but still annoyed her.
"I felt that the sacrifices I made were not appreciated as much as they should have been."
"I don't think he ever really understood."
Carrie says that taking on a traditionally accepted gender role and putting aside her ambitions happened without her even realizing it.
Eventually, she realized it wasn't what she wanted and the two broke up.
"People fall into gender norms," says Kod.
"It can happen completely unconsciously."
Experts say women are also putting their own careers on the back burner because they are juggling too many other plates at the same time, especially when it comes to household and family responsibilities, which fall much more heavily on women's shoulders.
According to the Deloitte report, despite the fact that 88 percent of respondents worked full-time, nearly half had primary responsibilities for household duties such as cleaning or caring for dependents.
Only about 10 percent said that their partner is responsible for these obligations, it added.
Quite simply, says Kod, they could be putting their own careers on the back burner out of sheer exhaustion.
"Honestly, you work full time and then you get home and start doing a bunch of stuff in the evenings, on the weekends, and before you go to work," she says.
"There is exhaustion, burnout - everything we know about mental health - and you can easily imagine that the choice is: I don't have the energy for it.
"I don't have time to devote to advancing my own career."
Even if they have not consciously decided to put caregiving and other household responsibilities ahead of their careers, Kod says that this work still mostly falls on the shoulders of women.
"These responsibilities sometimes don't stop," she says.
"And they sometimes take away part of your working day.
"We all know that getting ahead in the workplace isn't just about showing up on time and doing your part.
"But if you put someone else's career before your own, or you're just aware that someone is going to have to do all those chores at home, are you going to put in that extra effort? Chances are high that you won't," he believes.
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