America’s billionaires almost always marry within the upper class. But who they marry differs sharply by gender: women at the very top tend to marry fellow business heavyweights, while men at the top more often marry partners in philanthropy, culture or other fields.
That is the finding of a study by Ria Wilken in the Review of Economics of the Household, published open access on January 4, 2025.
A dataset of every US billionaire
Wilken combined the Forbes World’s Billionaires List for 2010 to 2022 with Wikipedia biographies and in-depth searches of other sources. The result covers all US billionaires in that period, 948 people, together with their spouses.
Spouses were classed by occupation into upper-class “fractions”: an economic upper class rich in money and business power, a cultural upper class rich in education and cultural capital, and a balanced upper class in between.
The billionaires themselves stand out from the general population. Almost 88% are men. About 74% were married in 2021, compared with 48% of all US adults, and only 5% were divorced versus almost 11% of adults generally.
Same class, different corners of it
Overall, 95% of billionaires had a spouse in an upper-class position, a figure that was nearly identical for men and women (95% and 96%).
The gender gap appears inside that elite. Some 66% of female billionaires’ spouses held a position in the economic upper class, against only 32% of male billionaires’ spouses.
About 65% of female billionaires’ spouses were either billionaires themselves or held business-related positions, compared with about 30% for male billionaires’ spouses. The second largest group of male billionaires’ spouses, 29%, worked in philanthropy.
Male billionaires’ spouses were also more often found in the balanced upper class (39% versus 18%) and the cultural upper class (24% versus about 13%).
Traditional roles at the very top
Wilken reads these patterns as evidence of “deeply ingrained traditional role allocations” in billionaire couples. Female billionaires appear more likely to have a partner in the same economic fraction, while male billionaires appear more relaxed about their spouse’s class position.
The pattern echoes earlier research: in 2019, only 29% of top-income US men had an employed spouse, compared with 84% of top-income women.
The study also found that a greater share of female billionaires inherited their wealth, and that billionaires tend to have more children than the general population. Wilken links these patterns to dynasty-building and the transfer of fortunes within families.
She flags a real limitation. Occupation data for spouses were missing for about 10% of female billionaires but 33% of male billionaires, which could bias the comparison.
Even with that caveat, the numbers sketch a clear picture of the top: almost every billionaire marries within the upper class, but the women are far more likely to marry into another boardroom.
Study Details:
- Title: Marrying a Billionaire: Studying US American billionaires’ family biographies using the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, 2010–2022
- Authors: Ria Wilken
- Journal: Review of Economics of the Household
- Publication Date: January 4, 2025
- DOI: 10.1007/s11150-024-09756-z