Families and Households - resources and decision making

What do Barrett and Mclntosh note?

Men gain more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support.

The financial support husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with ‘strings’ attached.

What does Kempson find?

Family members don’t share resources such as money and food equally.

In low-income families, women denied their own needs, seldom going out, and eat smaller portions of food/skipping meals altogether in order to make ends meet.

In many households, a woman has no entitlement to a share of the household resources in her own right. As a result, she is likely to see anything she spends on herself as money that ought to be spend on essentials for the children.

Even in households with adequate incomes, resources may be shared unequally, leaving the woman in poverty.

What do feminists Pahl and Volger identify?

Two types of control over family income:

1. the allowance system = men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget, with the man keeping any surplus income for himself.

2. Pooling = both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure, eg a joint account.

What do Pahl and Volger argue about pooling?

it’s assumed that pooling indicates more equality in decision making, however, where the pooled income is controlled by the husband, this tends to give men more power in major financial decisions. They found that even when there was pooling, men tended to make the major financial decisions.

What is Edgell’s study of professional couples?

Found that:

• very important decisions - eg. moving house - taken by the husband alone or jointly but with the husband having final say

• important decisions - eg. involving child’s education - taken joinly

• Less important decisions - eg. food purchases, home decor - taken by wife solely

  Edgell argues that the reason men are likely to take the decisions is that they earn more. Women usually earn less so are financially dependent on their husbands, having less say.

How does Laurie and Gershuny criticise Edgell? What does their finding support?

They found evidence of a limited move towards greater equality in decision making. By 1995, 70% of couples said they had equal say. Significantly though, they found that highly qualified, high earning women have more say.

What does Volger find that links decision making with family diversity? What does Nyman say?

Cohabiting couples are more likely than married couples to keep their incomes separate, yet evidence suggests that they share domestic tasks more equally. These ideas point to the fact that, as Nyman notes, money has no fixed meaning - it is a social construct.

What is the personal life perspective on money? What does Smart say?

focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money. While we might assume that one partner holding the money is a sign of inequality, but for some couples it may not have this meaning. For example, Smart finds that some gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money. She argues that there is greater freedom for same sex couples, this may be because they don’t enter relationships with the same ‘historical, gendered cultural meanings around money’ that see money as a source of power. (link to marxism?)

What does Weeks find? - personal life perspective

the typical pattern was pooling some money for household spending together, with separate accounts for personal spending. This system reflects a value of ‘co-independence’ - and is a pattern common in cohabiting couples - found by Volger.