IStock Photo 6267421 © Paul Kline

Early on in her marriage, Samantha Campen chose to work outside the home. A recruiter for a Chicago-area nursing school, Campen hoped her second income would help her growing family inch a little closer to the elusive American dream. “We still rent and have dreams of owning a home,” she says, “and we have debt that needs to be paid off.”

Then her husband found himself unemployed. Suddenly, Campen’s job was not a choice, but a necessity.

She isn’t alone. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 59.3% of married women in the United States were employed in 2007. While historically wives’ earnings contributed only minimally to the household income, a working woman today is more likely than ever before to be the primary breadwinner for her family. In fact, the odds a married female 15 or older will earn more money than her husband in a year are 1 in 2.99 (33.4%). That is an increase of 9% since 1989.

In times of recession, men are often the hardest hit. Since December 2007, men in the US have lost jobs at a much more rapid pace than their female counterparts. In July 2008, roughly 78.9 million men in the civilian work force were employed; a year later, that number had dropped to 74.9 million. For women, the decline was less steep, from 67.9 million to 66.2 million.

As in past recessions, this trend finds women poised to equal—or even outnumber—men in the workforce. But why the gender gap in layoffs? In large part, it’s because the economic downturn has been most profound in sectors traditionally dominated by men. Employment in construction fell by roughly 66,000 each month from May through September, 2009, while manufacturing jobs declined by 2.1 million since the recession began. In contrast, jobs in health care, a field dominated by women, has had an increase of 559,000 jobs in the same time period.

For wives who find themselves newly thrust into the role of primary earner, the shift can be financially difficult. Despite the growing percentage of married women supporting their families, women are still more likely than men to work less than 40 hours per week—and those who do work full-time pocket roughly 80% of their male counterparts’ median weekly earnings.

Many families find the change emotionally difficult as well. For Campen, being a full-time provider has meant spending less time with her husband and young son and more time juggling the responsibilities of work and home.

“It seems that if I stopped working, we could survive month-to-month, but that would just push our plans for the future farther away,” she says. “It has been hard at times, and exhausting, and stressful. But I’m working for the greater good of our family, which isn’t just a man’s job.”