Research about money management and decision making

Pahl and Vogler (1993) studied 1,211 couples and their parents:

Types of money management:

-Husband controlled pooling. Money is shared equally but the husband has the dominant role in deciding how it is spent.

-Wife-controlled pooling. The wife has the dominant role in deciding how the shared money is spent. Found in middle-income couples, especially where women were better educated/ had a higher paying job.

-Husband control. Husband has the only wage/main wage and gives his wife allowance.

-Wife control. Wife has the only wage/main wage. Most common in low-income households, responsibility of managing the finances is a burden.

Pahl and Vogler:

In wife controlled pooling, women would go short themselves (eating less and spending less on leisure) than see their husband and children go short.

Pooling is on the increase; where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure. They argue that husband control system is on the decline.

Gershuny (2000) examine data from the British Household Panel Survey 1991-95:

-Movement away from the allowance system

-Greater equality especially in evidence where women were well qualified and had high earnings.

-Use of joint pooling increased slightly

Same sex couples

Smart: found that some gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money and did not see it as a sign of inequality or equality.

Cohabiting couples

Vogler: found in cohabiting couples the typical pattern was also co-independence or partial pooling.

Edgell (1980) studied 38 middle class professional couples

-He found that very important decisions, involving things like finance, change of job or moving house, were either taken by the husband alone or taken jointly with the husband having the final say.

-Less important decisions were usually made by the wife. Wives dominated decision making in interior decoration, children's clothes and spending on food and other household items.

What are some evaluations of Edgell's study?

His research was based on a small unrepresentative sample, cannot generalise.

Ignores non-decision making, or actions which do not involve conscious decisions. Those who gain from non-decisions can be seen as more powerful than those who don't.

Hardill (1997) studied dual-career professional couples

Important decisions were made by the man and that his career took priority. So, 17 years after Edgell's study, Hardill found the same pattern.