Women's Relative Resources and Couples' Gender Balance in Financial Decision-Making

Abstract

We investigate how the relative education and earnings of husbands and wives are associated with self-reported decision-making within the family. Using European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions 2010 data for 27 European countries (n = 72,638), we find that women who earn more than their partner are more likely to report that they alone make the major financial and other important decisions. Men are more likely than women to be reported as financial decision makers if women contribute less than a quarter to joint earnings. However, in line with predictions based on traditional gender display, the association with relative earnings is not linear: among couples in which wives earn almost all of the income, we find that husbands are reported to have more say in financial decision-making than among couples in which both contribute a substantial part of the joint income. This non-linear pattern does not hold similarly for general decision-making. The discrepancy suggests that major financial issues, which were traditionally within the male realm, may be more susceptible to gender display than other family decisions.