"When the gender norm is violated, there is some compensating behavior to try to undo some of the utility loss experienced by the husband."

Or, keeping the equilibrium of expected and agreed upon social norms alive.

Manning up and womaning down: How husbands and wives report their earnings when she earns more

Abstract

Do gendered social norms influence survey reports of “objective” economic outcomes? This paper compares the earnings reported for husbands and wives in the Current Population Survey with their “true” earnings from administrative income-tax records. Estimates from OLS regressions show that survey respondents react to violations of the norm that husbands earn more than their wives by inflating their reports of husbands’ earnings and deflating their reports of wives’ earnings. On average, the gap between a husband’s survey and administrative earnings is 2.9 percentage points higher if his wife earns more than he does, and the gap between a wife’s survey and administrative earnings in 1.5 percentage points lower if she earns more than her husband does. These findings suggest that gendered social norms can influence survey reports of seemingly objective outcomes and that their impact may be heterogeneous not just between genders but also within gender.

and

The desire to view or present oneself in a positive light can lead survey respondents to over-report socially favored, and under-report socially disfavored, attitudes, circumstances, and behaviors (Bound, Brown and Mathiowetz 2000). Complicating the relationship between social desirability concerns and survey reporting behavior, a person’s identity may influence what is socially favored or disfavored. When a person self-identifies or is identified by others as a member of a group, he or she is subject to a set of behavioral norms for that group. How well the person adheres to these norms may affect the person’s own subjective sense of well-being and the sense of well-being of others (Akerlof and Kranton 2000). This paper asks how a specific gendered identity norm of different-sex marriage – that a husband should earn more than his wife – affects measurement error in the reported earnings reports of husbands and wives in the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPSASEC).

It is not only that "When Wives Earn More Than Husbands, Neither Partner Likes to Admit It" but also the fear of marriage breakup.

Marriage therapists say marriages can become shakier when women earn more than men if men feel insecure or women lose respect for them. Economists say it’s one reason the loss of working-class jobs for men has led to such discontent — and to fewer marriages.

When the gender norm is violated, there is some compensating behavior to try to undo some of the utility loss experienced by the husband,” said Marianne Bertrand, an author of the study and an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

"The essentially social logic of what is called 'vocation' has the effect of producing these kinds of harmonious encounters between dispositions and positions in which the victims of symbolic domination can felicitously (in both senses) perform the subaltern or subordinate tasks that are assigned to their virtues of submission, gentleness, docility, devotion and self-denial." 

Pierre Bourdieu