Critique of Article

Joanna R. Pepin University of Texas–Austin

Beliefs About Money in Families: Balancing Unity,

Autonomy, and Gender Equality

Objective: This study provides the first nation- ally representative data on U.S. adults’ percep- tions of income sharing within families. Background: Modern couples confront tensions between ideals of mutual interests and values of economic autonomy, a departure from fit- ting themselves into culturally expected family arrangements of the past. This study teases apart the conditions under which people might priori- tize one cultural value over another. Method: The author conducted a nationally rep- resentative survey experiment (N = 3,986 indi- viduals). The respondents selected an income allocation arrangement for a fictional couple with varied relationships investments (i.e., mar- riage, parenthood, length of relationship) and earning disparities. Results: Although stronger relationship invest- ments were associated with greater support for sharing all income, the most commonly selected income allocation arrangement was a hybrid arrangement of sharing some income and keeping the rest separate. When respondents preferred some amount of financial autonomy, the primary earner was expected to maintain ownership of a greater amount of the total household income. The preferred level of with- holding income was slightly larger in magnitude when women were shown as the primary earner when compared with men shown as the primary earner.

Population Reasearch Center, 305 E. 23rd Street, Austin, Texas 78712-1699 ([email protected]).

Key Words: couples, culture, family economics, family resource management, gender roles, money management.

Conclusion: The pursuit of economic auton- omy, in combination with beliefs about gender, are important dimensions of gender inequality located within families.

Introduction

Two contradictions related to the ways couples share money are commonly studied. First, cou- ples must reconcile the conflict between their commitment to a collective family unit and their desire for individual autonomy (Treas, 1993; Vogler, Brockmann, & Wiggins, 2008). Sec- ond, many couples struggle to create equality in the home given inequalities prevalent in the labor market (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Bur- goyne, 1990; Pahl, 1989; Treas, 1993; Vogler et al., 2008). To understand how these contradic- tions are reconciled within American families, researchers initially focused on grouping sys- tems of money arrangements into analytical cat- egories (Ashby & Burgoyne, 2008; Pahl, 1995). Thereafter, many have searched for possible explanations for the prevalence of various cat- egories and sought to identify the consequences of these arrangements (for an overview of prior research, see Bennett, 2013).

Drawing conclusions about how people rec- oncile these competing cultural values based on couples’ behavioral practices may be par- tial or even misleading (Ashby & Burgoyne, 2008, 2009). Behaviors tend to reflect a mixture of attitudes, circumstances, and other factors (Cherlin, 2009). Teasing apart behaviors that were adopted with purpose and those that were taken on for convenience or as a result of tempo- rary or unexpected circumstances is challenging

Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (April 2019): 361–379 361 DOI:10.1111/jomf.12554

362 Journal of Marriage and Family

using surveys of behavior (Addo, 2017; Treas, 1993). Couples’ treatment of money also may not fully reflect each individual’s values because partners with less bargaining power may not be able to implement their preferred arrange- ments (Lennon & Rosenfield, 1994). Moreover, couples’ financial practices generally remain unchanged throughout the duration of their relationship, making their behavior a lagging indicator of current beliefs about the appropriate treatment of money (Bisdee, Daly, & Price, 2013). People also tend to be particularly bad at consistently explaining their own behavior (Swidler, 2001; Vaisey, 2009). An approach that elicits individuals’ opinions about other people’s families may reflect cultural values better than assessments of their own family behavior.

This article contributes to the literature by evaluating beliefs about money sharing in families, providing new insight into how people reconcile competing cultural values (Ridgeway, 2011; Vaisey, 2009). A stream of qualitative research using nonrepresentative samples documents the significance of noneco- nomic mechanisms for the treatment of money in families, such as attitudes about families and gender dynamics (Ashby & Burgoyne, 2008; Bennett, 2013; Zelizer, 1989). For this study, I devised a novel vignette-survey experiment to collect the first nationally representative sample of U.S. adults’ beliefs about income sharing in families. Survey respondents were presented with a vignette of a fictional couple that varied in marital and parental status, rela- tionship duration, and relative incomes and then asked how the fictional couple should allocate their income. This survey method is valuable for understanding the conditions under which someone might prioritize one cultural value over another, such as a belief in family cohesiveness compared with support for economic autonomy (Cerulo, 2014; DiMaggio, 2014; Swidler, 1986). The research design also allowed for artificial variation of the environment, such as inflating the disparity in income between high-earning women and low-earning men (Mutz, 2011). Doing so facilitates the examination of attitudes under contexts that might otherwise be difficult to study given their relative rarity.

This article also addresses a secondary limi- tation in the existing research on the allocation of money in families. Prior studies measur- ing the distribution of income in households generally disregarded the gradations of survey

response categories “keeping some money sep- arate” and “keeping all money separate,” choos- ing instead to study a dichotomous difference of “pooling all money” and “keeping any money separate” (for an exception, see Hamplová & Le Bourdais, 2009). Separate and collective income distribution arrangements exist on a con- tinum, which prior research demonstrates war- rants careful interpretation (Ashby & Burgoyne, 2009; Burgoyne, 2008). Focusing on response gradations in income separation is important to understanding the crossroads between the family domain’s emphasis on interdependence and the market domain’s emphasis on self-reliance (Bel- lah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 2008; Yodanis & Lauer, 2014). Pooling some but not all money, known as a partial-pooling approach, may be a preferred arrangement because it facili- tates the redistribution of income while allowing continued control over some individual money. This article treats partial-pooling as a separate allocation arrangement, considering the grada- tion of financial integration.

First, I review theories on the ways vari- ous families might be expected to treat money. These expectations are used to develop hypothe- ses about when respondents prioritize family unity, evidenced by support for sharing income, compared with when people might prioritize economic autonomy in relationships, evidenced by support for separated money arrangements. I then draw on theories of bargaining power and exchange to generate hypotheses about percep- tions of entitlement to individual ownership of earned income.

Background and Hypotheses

Family Unity Versus Economic Autonomy

A family unity approach to relationships is char- acterized by values of family member solidarity, which prioritizes shared goals over individual pursuits in part through the sharing of family resources (Addo & Sassler, 2010; Bellah et al., 2008). This collectivized approach to finan- cial arrangements is thought to occur under the following three conditions: (a) exchanges are repeated and continuing, (b) investments in the relationship that cannot be recovered have already taken place, and (c) evaluation of repeated exchanges is costly (Treas, 1993; Williamson, 1975). Accordingly, couples who have greater relationship investments, such as a

Money in Families 363

public marriage commitment, children together, or a long relationship duration are expected to prioritize family unity over economic auton- omy, adopting collectivist money arrangements such as establishing a joint bank account. In this article, I disentangle the extent to which marriage, parenthood, and relationship duration influence support for collective approaches to family finances.

Marital Status. Legal protections provided to married couples and expectations about the longevity of the relationship are thought to increase married couples’ financial integra- tion levels (Burgoyne, Reibstein, Edmonds, & Routh, 2010; Desai, 1992; Treas, 1993). Despite higher levels of institutionalization in cohabi- tation in some contexts, married couples tend to pool their finances to a greater extent than cohabitors (Hamplová & Le Bourdais, 2009; Hamplová, Le Bourdais, & Lapierre-Adamcyk, 2014; Heimdal & Houseknecht, 2003; Kenney, 2006; Vogler, Brockmann, & Wiggins, 2006). Thus, I expect greater support for a married couple’s integration of their finances when com- pared with a cohabiting couple (Hypothesis 1).

Parental Status. A majority of nonmarital births now occur in cohabiting unions, and parenthood has become increasingly uncoupled from mar- riage, except among college graduates (Lund- berg & Pollak, 2014). There is some ambiguity about whether cohabiting parents in the United States integrate finances because of beliefs in family unity at the time coparenting begins or whether joining finances reflects practical con- siderations, such as protecting against financial hardships (Addo, 2014). Some evidence indi- cates that parenthood has become the key family transition during which people consider finan- cial integration to be appropriate and behav- ioral evidence reveals parents act more alike than nonparents, no matter their marital status (Bar- low, 2008; Kenney, 2004; Lyngstad, Noack, & Tufte, 2011; Vogler et al., 2008). For this rea- son, I constructed a hypothesis that support for sharing money will be greater for a couple who are parents than a couple who are nonparents (Hypothesis 2a).

It is an open empirical question whether the effects of marital and parental status are multiplicative—that is, whether support for shar- ing money is greatest for a married couple who are parents than for all other marital and parental

configurations. If people express greater support for sharing money after a transition into marriage and into parenting, the effect of parenthood com- bined with the effect of marriage may result in the greatest amount of support for sharing money compared with the effect of only marriage or only parenthood. Therefore, I predict the amount of support for married parents sharing money will be significantly larger compared with mar- ried nonparents and cohabitors (Hypothesis 2b).

Relationship Duration. About two thirds of marriages are preceded by cohabitation, and cohabiting couples planning to marry are more likely to integrate their finances when compared with cohabitors without intentions to legally wed (Addo, 2017; Manning, 2013). Although cohabiting couples typically either terminate their relationship or marry within 3 years, some couples cohabit for long dura- tions without an intention to marry (Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Goodwin, Mosher, & Chandra, 2010; Manning & Smock, 2002). Similar to married couples, long-term cohabitors may share financial resources in part to minimize transaction costs, such as the need to negotiate and monitor the use of funds (Oropesa, Landale, & Kenkre, 2003; Treas, 1993). Therefore, it may be seen as desirable for long-term cohabitors to integrate financial resources, similar to married couples.

The relationship duration may also influence perceptions of a married couple. Decreasing stigmatization of divorce has increased uncer- tainty about the permanency of marriage, and a belief in entitlement to personal autonomy does not necessarily vanish upon marriage (Bittman, England, Sayer, Folbre, & Matheson, 2003). Longer relationship durations of married cou- ples may elicit greater support for financial inte- gration, as the perception of the stability of the relationship increases. Thus, Hypothesis 3a sug- gests that support for sharing money will be greater for a couple in a long-term relationship than a couple in short-term relationship, no mat- ter the couple’s relationship status. Alternatively, the relationship duration may only matter when the stability of the partnership is highly question- able, such as for couples who have not legally committed to a partnership through marriage (Hypothesis 3b). Marriage is still considered a relationship transition that signifies permanency, and a stabilized divorce rate may mean that the

364 Journal of Marriage and Family

stability of marriages are not as questionable as in the past few decades.

Equality and Gender

Although the marriage contract requires finan- cial support of spouses and presumes treatment of the family as a single economic unit, people earn money in the labor market as individ- uals (Burgoyne, 1990; Burgoyne & Lewis, 1994; Nyman & Reinikainen, 2007). Even when income is thought of as a collective resource (as is legally enforceable in the case of marriage), partners remain cognizant of how money is earned and engage in mental accounting—earmarking and distinguishing between different kinds of money (Barlow, 2008; Burgoyne, 1990; Burgoyne, Clarke, Reibstein, & Edmunds, 2006; Burgoyne & Lewis, 1994). Moreover, with later transitions into marriage, people bring their own bank accounts, debt, and financial habits into their new family units. Thus, support for couples fully sharing financial resources, whether married or otherwise, may not be universally or even overwhelmingly endorsed today.

Couples confront discordance between beliefs in fair partnerships and entitlement to individual ownership of income earned in the labor market (Bennett, 2013; Elizabeth, 2001). When income is seen as a personal asset, exchange and dependency theories pre- dict the interests of the higher earner within partnerships are likely to prevail (Baxter & Kane, 1995; Brines, 1994). The partner most financially dependent on the relationship is also thought to have the weaker bargaining position and therefore might be seen as less entitled to economic autonomy when compared with the primary earner. For instance, higher earn- ing individuals in couples—overwhelmingly men—tend to have the last word about fam- ily financial decisions and more often spend nominally shared money without consulting their partners (Burgoyne et al., 2006). As the difference in men’s and women’s incomes has diminished, women have gained influence in family decision making and have increased the control of money they brought into the house- hold (Belch & Willis, 2002; Kenney, 2006). In accord with the ostensibly gender-neutral nature of exchange theory, attending to the interests of the primary earner might result in support for either men’s or women’s greater entitlement to

economic autonomy when they are the primary earner. Consequently, the amount of money to be withheld from a shared pot is expected to be greater for a primary earner compared with a lower earner (Hypothesis 4).

Next, I detail two conflicting gender-specific arguments that muddle the gender-neutral pre- diction derived from exchange and dependency theories. On one hand, conservative beliefs about appropriate gender behavior may constrain sup- port for women’s economic autonomy, but not men’s autonomy. Although men appear to pay themselves first, such as by treating bonuses as their own money, women’s discretionary spending is often contingent on the family’s financial needs (Tichenor, 1999; Zelizer, 1989). Primary-earning wives do not translate their higher earning status into power—such as gaining equitable divisions of unpaid labor and entitlement to decision making—to the same extent as men. Women’s earnings tend to be treated differently than men’s earnings, earmarked for child care and housekeeping expenses (Burgoyne, 1990; Zelizer, 1989). It may be the case that women’s income is assumed to be a resource that benefits the whole family (Lundberg, Pollak, & Wales, 1997; Phipps & Burton, 1998). Thus, it may follow that women’s greater relative earnings are insufficient to elicit agreement that women are entitled to personal spending money. The goal of economic auton- omy may be less salient when women are the primary earners than when men are the primary earners. If this is the case, I would expect the pro- portion allocated to a man’s individual account, under conditions when he is the primary earner, will be greater than the proportion allocated to a woman’s account, under conditions when she is the primary earner (Hypothesis 5a).

On the other hand, there are two contradic- tory reasons we might expect greater support for women’s economic autonomy than men’s economic autonomy. First, expectations for men to contribute financially to the common pot remain strong (Townsend, 2002). An acceptance of women in the labor force does not necessarily translate into all couples desiring equal finan- cial partnerships, as some couples prefer men to be the primary earner (Bertrand, Kamenica, & Pan, 2015; Milkie, Bianchi, Mattingly, & Robin- son, 2002). Imagery of a family wage, wherein men earn enough money to support their wives and children without women needing a job, may bolster the idea of men’s earnings going into a

Money in Families 365

Table 1. Hypotheses About Views of Couples’ Allocation of Income

Family unity and autonomy

Hypothesis 1 Support for sharing money will be greater for a married couple than a cohabiting couple Hypothesis 2a Support for sharing money will be greater for a couple who are parents than a couple who are not parents Hypothesis 2b Support for sharing money will be greatest for a married couple who are parents than for all other marital

and parental configurations Hypothesis 3a Support for sharing money will be greater for a couple with a long relationship duration than for a couple

with a short relationship duration Hypothesis 3b Support for sharing money will be greater for a cohabiting couple with a long relationship duration than a

cohabiting couple with a short relationship duration

Equality and gender

Hypothesis 4 Support for economic autonomy will be greater for the higher earner than the lower earner Hypothesis 5a Support for economic autonomy will be greater when a man is the primary earner than when a woman is

the primary earner Hypothesis 5b Support for economic autonomy will be greater when a woman is the primary earner than when a man is

the primary earner

common pot and dilute support for men’s eco- nomic autonomy.

Second, most couples express a desire for equality in their relationships (Gerson, 2009; Pedulla & Thébaud, 2015). Some modern cou- ples withhold money from a common pot as a tactic to ensure women have access to and control over money (Elizabeth, 2001). It may be that men are not perceived as needing to withhold money from a common pot to retain control over their earnings. In partnerships where a woman’s income is sufficient to support herself and her partner holds less conventional beliefs about gender, couples are more likely to take a partial-pooling approach, combining some but not all of their earnings (Vogler et al., 2006). An analysis of same-sex couples showed that these couples also tended to keep some money separate as a way to facilitate equality within their relationships (Burns, Burgoyne, & Clarke, 2008). For these reasons, I would expect the proportion allocated to a woman’s individual account when she is the primary earner will be greater than the proportion allocated to a man’s account when he is the primary earner (Hypothesis 5b).

In summary, the current study departs from prior research by using a survey experiment to evaluate beliefs about income sharing within families. This research design is advantageous for teasing apart the conditions under which someone might prioritize family unity over economic autonomy (Cerulo, 2014; DiMaggio,

2014; Swidler, 1986). The study aims to test support for collectivized approaches to income sharing when compared with autonomous approaches to allocating income within fam- ilies. It also draws on bargaining power and exchange theories to develop predictions about perceptions of entitlement to ownership of income. Building from the theoretical perspec- tives and previous research described previously, I summarize hypotheses about views of couples’ allocation of income in Table 1.

Methods

Data and Experimental Design

To test these hypotheses, I used original data from a nationally representative data set col- lected by Growth from Knowledge, funded by Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sci- ences (http://www.tessexperiments.org; Freese & Druckman, 2016). The respondents were recruited by GfK using probability-based sam- pling of U.S. addresses, and they were provided with equipment for internet access, if needed, to participate. This study was fielded in July and August 2016 on a random subset of GfK panelists, resulting in a total sample size of 4,020 respondents. Of the respondents, 31 failed to answer the primary question of interest for the analysis (see the Dependent Variables section), and 3 selected a partial-pooling approach for the fictional couple, but in a follow-up question divided the earnings into an all-individual or an

366 Journal of Marriage and Family

Figure 1. Experimental Design.

all-shared approach. These respondents were dropped from the analyses for a total analytic sample size of 3,986 respondents.

The respondents were asked to select an income allocation arrangement for a couple in a fictional vignette. The vignette design used a 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design, resulting in 24 dif- ferent vignettes (summarized in Figure 1). The fictional couple differed by marital and parental status, relationship duration, and relative earn- ings. Roughly equal numbers of respondents (315–348 respondents) viewed each of the 24 vignettes. The respondents were told that they would view a hypothetical scenario and be asked to give their opinion on how the couple should handle their money. For example, the married parents, 3-year relationship duration, man as pri- mary earner vignette is shown here (italics show vignette manipulation):

Michelle and Anthony, both 31 years old, are mar- ried and have been a couple for 3 years. They enjoy spending time together and they are happy with their relationship. They have one child together. Although they both work about 40 hours per week, Anthony earns $2,800 a month while Michelle earns $1,200 a month.

Experimental Manipulations

Relationship Investments. Dichotomous vignette conditions included variations of the fictional couple’s relationship investments: marital status (living together or married), parental status (nonparents or parents), and relationship dura- tion (3 or 7 years). Three years was selected because it was expected to elicit the great- est perception of differences in family unity between cohabiting and married couples while conveying some level of stability and was

consistent with research that shows cohabiting couples usually either terminate their relation- ship or get marred by this point (Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Goodwin et al., 2010). The long relationship duration was signified by a 7-year relationship, which maximized the difference between a short- and long-term relationship while allowing the presented ages of the couple to be plausible.

Relative Earnings. The relative earnings of the fictional couples consisted of the following three categories: man primary earner, equal earners, and woman primary earner. The total household earnings were based on analysis of median total household income ($53,657) calculated from the 2014 American Community Survey (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). This estimate was rounded down to make comparisons of earnings more interpretable for respondents and to represent the lower earner as making slightly more than the federal minimum wage. The gap between the man’s share and the woman’s share of the family’s earned income was manipulated to show either a primary earner or an equal earning scenario. Varying whether the primary earner was a man or a woman was necessary to test whether beliefs in economic autonomy were conditional on the gender of the fictional earner.

To address potentially confounding variables, other characteristics of the fictional couple were indicated and held constant across all vignettes. Both partners in the couple were presented as working 40 hours a week, the most common employment arrangement for couples in which both are employed and as a way to hold constant the hours spent in paid labor for each partner. Both partners were described as 31 years of age, slightly older than the average age of marriage and the average age to have a first birth (Cohen, 2018). This age is advantageous for comparing first marriages and cohabitation, theoretically important to understanding demographic trends in family formation (Cherlin, 2009). This age is also less encumbered with potentially unin- tended assumptions related to later life stages (e.g., likelihood of prior investments, retire- ment, remarriage, obligations to children from previous relationships, and financial support to aging parents). Theoretically racially neutral names, Anthony and Michelle, were selected by identifying popular shared names for Black and White babies born in this age range (Lieberson, 2000). Pilot tests of the vignette showed that

Money in Families 367

most respondents assumed the couple’s racial identity was either White or the same race as their own identity.

Dependent Variables

There are two dependent variables in this anal- ysis. First, the evaluations of bank account ownership were used as a measure of income sharing between partners. This measure was adapted from behavioral indicators of how couples allocate their finances, which is used in surveys such as the International Social Survey Programme, Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, and the National Longitudi- nal Study of Adolescent Health (Brooks-Gunn, Garfinkel, McLanahan, & Paxson, 2011; Har- ris et al., 2009; International Social Survey Programme Research Group, 2014). After pre- senting the fictional couple, the respondents were informed that couples organize their income in many different ways and were asked the following:

Do you think Michelle and Anthony should: (a) have a shared account in which they both deposit all their earned income; (b) keep all their earned income in separate, individual accounts; or (c) have both a shared account and separate, individ- ual accounts?

Selection of the shared account was used as an indicator of a unitary family interest, as both individuals in the couple are expected to deposit their income into this account and all expenses, joint and individual, will thus be withdrawn from this account. Selecting the second answer choice—in which each person should have their own individual accounts and no joint account—indicated that money was perceived to be a personal resource, as earnings remain individually accessed and controlled and the couple consists of two separate financial entities. Respondents who selected having both shared and individual accounts are subsequently referred to as selecting the “partial-pooling” option. Thus, this dependent variable includes the following three categories: shared account, separate account, and both accounts.

The second dependent variable applied to respondents who selected the partial-pooling option. These respondents were asked to deter- mine how much money Michelle and Anthony should each put in their individual accounts and in a shared account. The survey required the total amounts to be summed to the manipulated

income presented for each person in the vignette. Therefore, this dependent variable is continous. I transformed the dependent variable from the dollar amounts allocated into each account (e.g., his, hers, and shared) into proportions of the total household income so that the denominator ($4,000) was held steady across the relative earnings manipulations. Because this dependent variable was transformed into a proportion, in addition to the analyses presented in this article, I also estimated a generalized linear model with the logit link and the binomial family. Compar- isons of the models showed that the conclusions presented here remain the same regardless of the model.

Analyses

First, I used multinomial logistic regression, selected because the first dependent measure is nominal and contains more than two cate- gories (i.e., shared, partial pooling, separate). In analyses not shown, the Wald test for com- bining alternatives revealed that each of the three income allocation approaches were dis- tinct categories. In addition, the Hausman test showed that the model does not violate the inde- pendence of irrelevant alternatives assumption (Hausman & McFadden, 1984). The respon- dents were randomly assigned to a vignette condition, so demographic controls are not necessary in the statistical models (Maxwell & Delaney, 2004; Mutz, 2011). A check of the correlations between vignette variables and key respondent variables confirmed no statistical significance between the vignette manipulations and respondent characteristics. For theoretical reasons, I included predictor variables that prior literature shows are associated with behavioral differences in the ways people report allocating income within families. These include gen- der (Pahl, 1995), marital status (Burgoyne & Morison, 1997), parental status (Lyngstad et al., 2011), age (Vogler & Pahl, 1994), race/ethnicity (Addo & Sassler, 2010; Kenney, 2004), education (Treas, 1993), employment status (Kenney, 2006), and income (Copp, Gior- dano, Manning, & Longmore, 2016). Table 2 shows the unweighted means for the sample.

In the Results section, I start by presenting the effects of the marital status, parental sta- tus, relationship duration, and earnings disparity vignette manipulations on selecting an allo- cation arrangement for the fictional couple. I

368 Journal of Marriage and Family

Table 2. Means of Respondents’ Demographic Characteristics

Variable Description Proportion/

mean

Woman Female respondent (1 = “yes”) 0.51 Relationship status

Married Respondent is married (1 = “yes”) 0.54 Cohabiting Respondent is living with a partner (1 = “yes”) 0.05 Never married Respondent reports they have never been married (1 = “yes”) 0.23 Other relationship status Respondent reports they are divorced, separated, or widowed (1 = “yes”) 0.19

Parent At least one child lives with the respondent (1 = “yes”) 0.26 White White respondent (vs. non-White) (1 = “yes”) 0.70 Education

Less than high school Respondent’s highest degree received is less than a high school diploma (1 = “yes”) 0.08 High school Respondent’s highest degree received is a high school diploma (1 = “yes”) 0.60 College Respondent’s highest degree received is at least a bachelor’s degree (1 = “yes”) 0.32

Employed Respondent reports he or she is working (1 = “yes”) 0.57 Income Respondent’s household income is at least $60,000 a year (1 = “yes”) 0.50 Age Respondent’s age in years (18–92) 50.20

(17.35)

Note. N = 3,986. Sample descriptives are unweighted. Standard deviations in parentheses for continuous variables.

discuss the predicted proportion of respondents who assigned each type of income allocation approach, holding all the other model variables at their means. Due to the experimental design, there were minimal differences between the descriptive statistics and the predicted propor- tion of respondents derived from the multivariate analyses. The full multinomial logistic regres- sion table is provided in the supporting informa- tion (Table S1). Next, I show the results from the multinomial logistic regressions that included interactions of marital status with the parental status and relationship duration manipulations. Finally, for the subsample of respondents who selected the partial-pooling option, I estimated ordinary least squares regression models to eval- uate differences in the amount of income they believed should be distributed between shared use and individual accounts.

To ease the interpretation of the results, Figures 2–4 show the estimates from the regression-adjusted means. In other words, the figures show the predicted proportion of respondents selecting each arrangement and the proportion of total household income to be deposited in his, hers, and shared accounts, after holding the other variables (i.e., the remaining vignette manipulations and the respondents’ demographic characteristics) at their means. All results are presented without using analytical weights; in analyses not shown, the results

remained the same when modeled with the weights.

Results

Support for collectivized approaches to financial arrangements were expected to be influenced by perceptions of couples’ relationship invest- ments, such as marriage (Hypothesis 1), parenthood (Hypothesis 2a), and relation- ship duration (Hypothesis 3a). Table 3 presents the predicted proportions of respondents who assigned a shared account, separate accounts, or both shared and separate accounts to the fictional couple for the total sample and disag- gregated by the marital status, parental status, and relationship duration manipulations of the vignette. For the total sample, the most com- monly selected income allocation arrangement was a partial-pooling arrangement, putting some money in a shared account and keeping the rest in individual accounts (45%). The predicted proportion of respondents who selected only a shared account was 39%, and the predicted proportion of respondents selecting only sepa- rate accounts was 16%, holding all the vignette manipulations and respondent characteristics constant at their means. In the table, superscript notation denotes statistical significance levels where p < .05, and the distinctions between significance levels are provided in the text.

Money in Families 369

Figure 2. Predicted Proportion of Each Arrangement by Marital/Parental Status Vignette Condition.

Figure 3. Predicted Proportion of Each Arrangement by Marital Status and Relationship Duration Vignette Conditions.

The next two columns in Table 3 compare the type of arrangement selected for a cohabiting couple when compared with a married couple. The superscript a indicates that the selection of the type of account was statistically signifi- cantly different between married and cohabiting vignettes. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, greater support for shared arrangements when compared with partial pooling and separate accounts were only observed for married couple vignettes and

not for cohabiting couple vignettes. Net of other factors, the predicted proportion of respondents selecting a shared account was greater (49%) than the proportion of respondents selecting par- tial pooling (41%) or separate accounts (10%) in vignettes about married couples. In contrast, vignettes about cohabiting couples elicited a greater proportion of respondents choosing par- tial pooling (49%) than shared accounts (29%) or separate accounts (23%). The difference

370 Journal of Marriage and Family

Figure 4. Predicted Income Distribution by Earnings Disparity among Partial-Pooling Arrangement.

Table 3. Predicted Proportions of Respondents Who Assigned a Shared Account, Shared and Separate Accounts, or Separate Accounts by Fictional Couple Marital Status, Parental Status, and Relationship Duration

Marital status Parental status Relationship duration

Allocation Arrangement All Cohabiting Married Nonparent Parent 3 years 7 years

Shared account 0.39 0.29 0.49a 0.36 0.42b 0.37 0.41c

Partial pooling 0.45 0.49 0.41a 0.44 0.46 0.45 0.45 Separate accounts 0.16 0.23 0.10a 0.20 0.12b 0.18 0.14c

Note. N = 3,986. Predictions based on multinomial models that control for the relative earnings manipulation and respondent gender, relationship status, parental status, race, education, employment, income, and age. All comparisons across categories of the dependent variable were statistically significant at the p < .05 level. p < .05, two-tailed tests. aSignificantly different from cohabiting couple vignette. bSignificantly different from nonparent couple vignette. cSignificantly different from 3-year vignette.

in the predicted proportion of respondents selecting a shared account for married couples (49%) when compared with cohabiting couples (29%) was statistically significantly different (p < .001). Notably, a majority of respondents (77%) supported cohabitors sharing at least some money rather than keeping it all separate (23%).

Moving across Table 3, the next columns compare the selected allocation arrangements by the fictional couple’s parental status. Hypoth- esis 2a predicted greater support for parents’ financial integration than for nonparents. The greater predicted proportion of selecting only a shared account (42%) for parents than for non- parents (36%) was consistent with this hypoth- esis (p < .001). Separate accounts were more

commonly preferred for nonparents (20%) than for parents (12%; p < .001). Parental status did not significantly differentiate the selection of a partial-pooling option. Notably, the assignment of a partial-pooling approach was the most com- monly selected allocation arrangement for non- parents (44%) and parents (46%) alike, holding all other model variables constant at their means.

The final two columns in Table 3 compare the assignment of financial allocation strate- gies by the fictional couple’s relationship dura- tion. Consistent with Hypothesis 3a, the findings showed greater support for a shared account for fictional couples with 7-year relationship dura- tions (41%) when compared with 3-year rela- tionship durations (37%; p < .01). Again, the assignment of a partial-pooling approach was

Money in Families 371

the most commonly selected allocation arrange- ment across relationship durations (45%) after holding all other model variables consistent at their means. A greater proportion of respon- dents selected separate accounts only for couples with shorter relationship durations (18%) com- pared with longer relationship durations (14%; p < .001).

Table 4 presents the analyses that assessed the marital status manipulation interacted with the parental status and the relationship duration manipulations. Each interaction was conducted in separate models and included controls for the other vignette manipulations and respondents’ demographic characteristics. To aid interpreta- tion of the coefficients, the predicted proportions of respondents selecting each arrangement, after adjusting for effects of the other model vari- ables, are presented in Figures 2 and 3. Statisti- cal tests notated in Figures 2 and 3 were adjusted for the multiple comparisons using the Bonfer- roni adjustment, dividing the 𝛼 level (.05) by the number of pairwise tests (6; p < .008).

The results from the marital status inter- actions revealed that the effects of parental status and relationship duration were only observed among cohabiting couple vignettes and not among married couple vignettes. Figure 2 indicates that the predicted proportion of respondents who selected only a shared account was significantly greater for cohabiting parents (34%) than for childless cohabitors (23%; p < .008). Yet, the predicted propor- tion of respondents selecting only a shared account was no different for married parents (50%) than for married nonparents (49%). These findings were contrary to Hypothesis 2b, which expected support for sharing money would be greatest for married parents than for all other marital and parental configurations. The respondents were more likely to select a partial-pooling approach than only a shared account for cohabiting couples, regardless of whether they had children (51% vs. 34%) or not (46% vs. 23%). The assignment of a partial-pooling approach was also similar for cohabiting couples (46% for nonparents and 51% for parents) and married nonparents (42%), but a statistically significantly smaller propor- tion selected a partial-pooling approach for married parents (40%) compared with cohabit- ing couples (p < .008). The selection of separate accounts only was greater for cohabiting non- parents (30%) than for all other marital and

parental status combinations. To summarize, these results suggested that parental status was particularly salient when presented with cohabiting couples.

A similar pattern emerged when assessing the effects of relationship duration by marital status. Figure 3 shows the greater predicted proportion of respondents selecting only a shared account for couples with longer relationship durations was only apparent for respondents presented with the cohabiting vignette. For cohabiting cou- ples, a greater proportion of respondents selected a shared account for cohabitors together for 7 years compared with cohabitors together for 3 years (33% vs. 24%; p < .008). The predicted selection of a shared account was 49% for mar- ried couples together for 3 years and 7 years. Selection of separate accounts was greatest for cohabitors with the shorter relationship duration (26%), and a smaller proportion of respondents chose separate accounts for married couples (11% for shorter durations and 8% for longer durations) compared with cohabitors with longer relationship durations (19%; p < .008). In sum, the relationship duration findings were consis- tent with Hypothesis 3b, which expected rela- tionship duration to be associated with greater support for cohabiting couples sharing money, but inconsistent with competing Hypothesis 3a, which expected relationship duration to affect perceptions of sharing regardless of marital sta- tus. Again, the selection of a partial-pooling approach was most common for cohabiting cou- ples, no matter the duration of their relationship (50% for 3 years and 48% for 7 years).

Overall, greater support for sharing money was indicated for couples who were married (Hypothesis 1), were parents (Hypothesis 2a), or had longer relationship durations (Hypothe- sis 3a). Still, support for pooling at least some money was also evident for all couples. More than 75% of the sample were predicted to select some form of money sharing (partial pooling or only a shared account), no matter the fic- tional couples’ relationship investments. The most common financial allocation arrangement for cohabitors was a partial-pooling option, and nearly 50% of the sample supported married couples keeping some or all money separate. A robustness check of the allocation of shared income among the respondents who selected a partial-pooling option was consistent with these results. Among those who selected partial pool- ing, a significantly greater proportion of income

372 Journal of Marriage and Family

Table 4. Multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis of Preferred Income Allocation Arrangements by Marital Status Interactions: Parental Status and Relationship Duration

Partial pooling Separate accounts

Coefficient SE Coefficient SE

Marital and Parental Status Interaction Model Marital and parental status interactions (reference is cohabiting nonparents)

Cohabiting parents −0.29 0.11** −1.12 0.14***

Married nonparents −0.90 0.11a *** −1.96 0.14a***

Married parents −0.96 0.11a *** −1.96 0.14a***

7-year relationship (compared with 3 years) −0.12 0.07 −0.43 0.10***

Relative income (reference is man primary earner) Equal earners 0.18 0.09* 0.00 0.12 Woman primary earner 0.07 0.09 0.02 0.12 Intercept −0.35 0.24 0.36 0.31

Marital Status and Relationship Duration Interaction Model Marital status and duration interactions (reference is cohabiting 3 years)

Cohabiting 7 years −0.35 0.11** −0.61 0.13***

Married 3 years −0.99 0.11b*** −1.64 0.14b***

Married 7 years −0.92 0.11b*** −1.90 0.15b***

Parent −0.14 0.07 −0.68 0.10***

Relative income (reference is man primary earner) Equal earners 0.18 0.09* 0.00 0.12 Woman primary earner 0.07 0.09 0.02 0.12 Intercept −0.29 0.24 0.27 0.31

Note. N = 3,986. Baseline is a shared account. Listwise deletion used for missing data. Analyses include controls for respondent characteristics listed in Table 3. aStatistically significantly different from cohabiting parents (p < .05). bStatistically significantly different from cohabiting for 7 years (p < .05). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

was allocated to the shared account with each relationship investment, although the proportion shared was greater than 50% of the total house- hold income for all fictional couples and the magnitude of the differences were small. Taken together, these findings suggested some ambiva- lence about the resolution to the conflict between values of family unity and economic autonomy within family relationships.

Table 5 presents the preferred levels of income sharing among those who selected a partial-pooling arrangement (45% of the total sample). These models were conducted to test Hypothesis 4 and Hypothesis 5 regard- ing the importance of relative earnings and gender in influencing perceptions of income sharing. Table 5 shows statistically significant differences in earning distributions in “his” and “her” individual accounts for each of the relative earnings categories. As expected under Hypothesis 4, the respondents reported the primary earner, regardless of gender, should maintain ownership of a greater amount of the

total household income, reflecting that person’s earnings advantage in the marketplace.

Figure 4 illustrates the average predicted pro- portion of earned income to be distributed into each account, after adjusting for variation in the other model variables (calculated from Table 5). For example, after adjusting for the other model variables, women were expected to have 13% of the total household earnings in their personal accounts under men as primary-earner condi- tions compared with 33% of the total earn- ings when women were the primary earners themselves.

The results showed no difference in percep- tions of the amount of shared income between the vignette of a man as the primary earner compared with the equal-earning vignette, but significantly less support for sharing all income when women were presented as the primary earners. The following two reasons were posited that would predict greater support for women’s economic autonomy than men’s: (a) notions of men providing for their families may suppress

Money in Families 373

Table 5. Ordinary Least Squares Regression Analysis of the Effects of Relative Income Vignette Manipulations on Perceptions of Allocation of Household Income

Shared account His account Her account “Vignette manipulations” and “Respondent Characteristics” Coefficient SE Coefficient SE Coefficient SE

Vignette Manipulations Relative income (reference is man primary earner)

Equal earners 0.01 0.01 −0.08 0.01*** 0.07 0.01***

Woman primary earner −0.04 0.01*** −0.16 0.01*** 0.20 0.01***

Married (compared with cohabiting) 0.06 0.01*** −0.02 0.00*** −0.03 0.01***

Parent (compared with nonparents) 0.05 0.01*** −0.02 0.00*** −0.02 0.00***

7-year relationship (compared with 3 years) 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Respondent Characteristics

Women 0.02 0.01 −0.01 0.00* 0.00 0.01 Relationship status (reference is married)

Cohabiting −0.02 0.02 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.01 Never married −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01 Other relationship status 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.01 0.01

Parent 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 −0.01 0.01 White 0.03 0.01 −0.01 0.01* −0.02 0.01***

Education (reference is high school) Less than high school 0.01 0.02 −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 College 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01

Employed 0.01 0.01 −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 Income greater than $60,000 0.04 0.01*** −0.02 0.01*** −0.02 0.01**

Age 0.00 0.00** 0.00 0.00** 0.00 0.00 Intercept 0.32 0.03*** 0.42 0.02*** 0.26 0.02***

R2 (adjusted) 0.07 0.32 0.40

Note. N = 1,784. Analysis includes only respondents who selected “both shared and separate accounts.” Listwise deletion used for missing data. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

support for men’s economic autonomy but not women’s, and (b) one tactic for ensuring women’s control of their finances may be to support their economic autonomy. Although unraveling these motivations is not possible with these data, the greater support for women’s economic autonomy when compared with men’s economic autonomy was therefore consistent with Hypothesis 5b (and inconsistent with competing Hypothesis 5a). When women were depicted as the primary earners in the couples, the predicted portion of total earnings indicated for women’s own accounts was proportionally greater (33%) than when men were presented as the primary earners (28%; p < .05).

Subsequent interaction models (not shown) of marital and parental statuses by relative earn- ings showed support for economic autonomy declined as the couples were presented as mar- ried and parents. There were no statistically sig- nificant differences comparing parental status within marital categories. Across all marital and

parental status configurations, the proportion of total household earnings to be retained in the pri- mary earner’s account was greater when women were presented as primary earners compared with primary-earning men.

To summarize, analyses of the partial-pooling arrangement resulted in parallel conclusions from analyses of the full sample. The respon- dents supported a more collectivized approach to money when vignette couples where depicted with relationship investments such as shared children or marriage. As an additional robust- ness check of the partial-pooling conclusions, I assigned respondents who selected “share everything” a proportion of 100% for the joint account and a proportion of 0% for his or her accounts. Similarly, I assigned 0% for the joint account for respondents who selected “separate only,” and I assigned the proportion equivalent to the fictional earner into his or her accounts. With this full model, the relative earnings con- tinued to matter for predicting the proportion

374 Journal of Marriage and Family

allocated in “his” and “her” accounts, although there were no statistically significant differences in the proportion of total household income deposited into the shared account by relative earnings. The gender difference remained sta- tistically significant, but was diminished. The predicted proportion of total household earnings allocated to the man’s account was 24% when he was the primary earner compared with 26% allocated to the woman’s account when she was the primary earner (p < .001).

Discussion

This article analyzed the first nationally rep- resentative sample of U.S. adults’ attitudes about income sharing in families. The data were collected using an experimental survey design, a particularly useful approach for inves- tigating conflicting values (DiMaggio, 2014; Mutz, 2011; Swidler, 1986). It moves beyond previous research by testing how specific indi- cators of relationship investment (i.e., marriage, parenthood, and relationship duration) influ- enced support for collectivist or autonomous approaches to money. Isolating the role each of these relationship investments plays in shap- ing perceptions of the treatment of money in families has so far been difficult when using behavioral indicators. The study also used exchange and dependency theories to explore whether earnings disparities between partners, and the gender of the primary earner, influ- enced perceptions of the allocation of financial resources between partners.

The first goal of this study was to tease apart some of the ways in which relation- ship investments influence support for family unity compared with economic autonomy. The findings were consistent with theoretical expectations that preferences for family unity, as evidenced by collectivized approaches to financial arrangements, would be strongest for couples with discernable relationship invest- ments. The results showed a greater proportion of survey respondents favored married couples fully sharing their income compared with pref- erences for cohabitors. Influences of parental status and relationship duration were conditional on the marital status of the fictional couple. Par- enthood and longer relationship durations did not garner greater support among the married couple vignettes, but parenthood and longer rela- tionships did result in greater support for sharing income among the cohabiting couple vignettes.

Regardless of relationship investment indi- cators, the findings showed widespread sup- port for collectivist approaches to money within families. About 70% of respondents chose at least some integration of finances for cohab- iting couples without children—the relation- ship type theoretically presumed to have the least commitment and common investment. This endorsement of integration across couple types may reflect recognition of the efficiencies of income pooling, even in relationships without legal protection or expectations of permanency (Treas, 1993). These results were also consistent with the possibility that cohabiting parents’ inte- gration of finances may be more than a strategy to counter economic burdens, an empirical ques- tion posited by previous scholars (Addo, 2014).

Still, about half of the sample evaluated mar- ried couples as preferably withholding at least some of their earnings from a shared account. These results were consistent with the prediction that a substantial share of people endorse some economic autonomy, as evidenced by respon- dents’ selection of the fictional couple keeping at least some money in separate accounts. No matter the fictional legal and kinship ties, most respondents supported some level of financial autonomy across the relationship types. These findings diverge from popular assumptions that only couples at risk of exiting their relation- ship pursue economic autonomy. An underlying commitment to autonomy within stable partner- ships may be a function of the transition to individualized relationships (Lauer & Yodanis, 2011; Yodanis & Lauer, 2014). The findings underscore the need to further consider individ- ualist interests within all types of families.

I also tested whether the higher earning partners would receive greater support for their economic autonomy when compared with the lower earning partners. Exchange and depen- dency theories suggest economic resources increase authority over family finances (Baxter & Kane, 1995; Blood & Wolfe, 1960; Brines, 1994). When money was considered an individ- ual resource, primary earners were evaluated as having greater entitlement to personal earnings as indicated by the proportion of the total house- hold income to be allocated to their personal account—money that can presumably be spent autonomously. These results are consistent with prior research showing that perceived ownership

Money in Families 375

of income is a primary consideration in how cou- ples distribute financial resources (Burgoyne, Reibstein, Edmunds, & Dolman, 2007).

To examine these competing theories of how the gender of earners influenced perceptions of entitlement to individual ownership of money, the gender of the fictional primary earner was varied in the vignettes. On one hand, conser- vative beliefs about appropriate gender behav- ior may suppress support for women’s economic autonomy. On the other hand, continued beliefs in men’s primary role as economic contribu- tors to the family and beliefs in women’s need to keep money separate to ensure control of it may be associated with greater support for women’s economic autonomy than for men’s economic autonomy. Findings showed support for the latter—support for withholding earnings from the common pot was slightly larger in mag- nitude for primary-earning women (33%) than for primary-earning men (28%).

This finding was consistent with research that questions gender-neutral exchange approaches to explain family dynamics within heterosex- ual relationships (Bittman et al., 2003; Mun- sch, 2015). One reason why women’s increasing labor force participation has not been a sufficient condition to bring about equality within families is women’s earnings may be viewed differently than men’s earnings. These results are consis- tent with evidence that women’s money is often treated as supplemental to families’ financial well-being (Potuchek, 1997). Behavioral evi- dence shows that some women withhold their earnings to ensure control over them, maybe to direct money toward services that replace their unpaid household burdens (Cohen, 1998; Gupta, 2007). These findings add to evidence that power differentials in couples are not fully explained by income differentials, and beliefs about gender and appropriate family dynamics are important dimensions to further investigate (Moore, 2008).

This study is not without its limitations. I used a shared account as a proxy for collective own- ership, but this is an untested assumption. A joint bank account may reflect a belief in col- lective operation, but qualitative research finds that is not always the reality (Burgoyne et al., 2006). In addition, although the vignette method uniquely allows for the isolation of specific conditions, this study can only explore attitudes about allocation of money within families rather than the behavior itself. This study was also lim- ited to the analysis of heterosexual couples, as

the anticipated variance in gendered dynamics in lesbian and gay relationships would have intro- duced additional factors beyond its scope. Artifi- cially inflating the earnings differential between higher earning women and their lower earning male partners is advantageous to understanding attitudes about money in families, although I rec- ognize this situation may be rare in actuality. To limit the experiment to a feasible number of vignette conditions, the study did not attempt to manipulate the perceived race or ethnicity of the fictional couples, which may have led to differ- ences in perceptions of the survey variables. Fur- ther variations of these characteristics—as well as altering the relationship duration, household income, relative earnings, ages, and inclusion of portrayals of stepfamilies—may be an important extension of this research.

Although the consistency between attitudes and behaviors is debated, measuring attitudes remains vital to teasing apart mechanisms underlying behavior (Vaisey, 2014). By elicit- ing respondents’ opinions of others’ behavior instead of seeking explanatory accounts of their own behavior, this study mitigates one concern about the connection between attitudes and behavior. The results point to the ways couples may reconcile contradictions in their own relationships, even though the negotia- tions themselves cannot be analyzed using this research design. Research into the intervening factors that complicate associations between what people think should happen with money in families and how money is actually treated would improve knowledge about family dynam- ics. More research is necessary to determine when dissimilarities in attitudes and behavior result from differences in the operationalization of behaviors and attitudes or when they stem from other mechanisms. Notably, the attitudes revealed in this study are not in contradiction with behavioral research but illuminate the subtlety between the dichotomous indicators of pooling or not pooling that is commonly used in behavioral studies.

Paradoxically, even as family configura- tions are increasingly diverse (Cohen, 2018), the social norms that govern the allocation of money within families appeared remark- ably similar across family types. The findings showed normative support for cohabiting couples integrating some of their resources despite the lack of legal guidance concerning their obligations to one another in the event of a

376 Journal of Marriage and Family

break up. These findings challenge conventional wisdom that an agreed-upon benefit of marriage over cohabitation is that marriage uniquely increases the sharing of resources within fam- ilies. Instead, this analysis revealed normative support for sharing at least some household earnings for nonmarried couples, which sug- gests that gains from income sharing may also be pursued in nonmarital unions. The findings from this study indicate that marital laws may trail behind cultural norms about resource sharing within families. Although cohabiting couples are not categorized as families for some government purposes, such as welfare policies and the official measurement of poverty, these findings suggest that a reexamination of these policy assumptions may be warranted.

These findings were also consistent with behavioral evidence suggesting the pursuit of financial autonomy is a relevant issue for welfare reform (Bennett & Sung, 2013). Evidence from this study suggests that all couples may draw on beliefs in economic autonomy and entitlement to individual earnings when allocating economic resources, potentially perpetuating unequal mar- ket forces within personal relationships. Policies encouraging poor women to marry may rely on faulty assumptions that couples are motivated to redistribute unequal labor market earnings in the home and only within married families. Looking at variation in attitudes across contexts and time may refine our understanding of the linkages between micro-level and macro-level dynamics. Considering the broader policy con- ditions and institutional structures that make up the context of relationship dynamics is one possible direction for future research examining the treatment of money in families.

Note

The author is grateful to Philip Cohen, Liana Sayer, and Stanley Presser for offering invaluable advice through- out the duration of this project. Data for this project were collected by Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sci- ences (TESS), National Science Foundation Grant 0818839. I thank the TESS Principal Investigators, Jeremy Freese and James Druckman, and TESS’s anonymous grant reviewers for their suggestions.

Supporting Information

Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article.

Table S1. Multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis of Preferred Income Allocation Arrangements by Vignette Manipulations and Respondent Characteristics

References

Addo, F. R. (2014). Debt, cohabitation, and marriage in young adulthood. Demography, 51, 1677–1701. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0333-6

Addo, F. R. (2017). Financial integration and relation- ship transitions of young adult cohabiters. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38, 84–99. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10834-016-9490-7

Addo, F. R., & Sassler, S. (2010). Financial arrange- ments and relationship quality in low-income cou- ples. Family Relations, 59, 408–423. https://doi .org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00612.x

Ashby, K. J., & Burgoyne, C. B. (2008). Separate financial entities? Beyond categories of money management. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 458–480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2006 .12.035

Ashby, K. J., & Burgoyne, C. B. (2009). The financial practices and perceptions behind separate systems of household financial management. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 38, 519–529. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.socec.2009.02.007

Barlow, A. (2008). Cohabiting relationships, money and property: The legal backdrop. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 502–518. https://doi.org/10 .1016/j.socec.2006.12.037

Baxter, J., & Kane, E. W. (1995). Dependence and independence: A cross-national analysis of gender inequality and gender attitudes. Gender and Society, 9, 193–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 089124395009002004

Belch, M. A., & Willis, L. A. (2002). Family deci- sion at the turn of the century: Has the chang- ing structure of households impacted the family decision-making process? Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 2, 111–124. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb .94

Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (2008). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bennett, F. (2013). Researching within-household dis- tribution: Overview, developments, debates, and methodological challenges. Journal of Marriage and Family, 75, 582–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ jomf.12020

Bennett, F., & Sung, S. (2013). Dimensions of financial autonomy in low-/moderate-income couples from a gender perspective and impli- cations for welfare reform. Journal of Social Policy, 42, 701–719. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0047279413000330

Bertrand, M., Kamenica, E., & Pan, J. (2015). Gen- der identity and relative income within house- holds. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130, 571–614. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv001

Bisdee, D., Daly, T., & Price, D. (2013). Behind closed doors: Older couples and the gendered management of household money. Social Policy

Money in Families 377

and Society, 12, 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S147474641200053X

Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L. C., Folbre, N., & Matheson, G. (2003). When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. American Journal of Sociology, 109, 186–214. https://doi.org/10.1086/378341

Blood, R. O., & Wolfe, D. M. (1960). Husbands & wives: The dynamics of married living. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1983). American cou- ples: Money, work, sex. New York: William Mor- row.

Brines, J. (1994). Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 652–688.

Brooks-Gunn, J., Garfinkel, I., McLanahan, S. S., & Paxson, C. (2011). Fragile families and child well- being study [public use data]. ICPSR31622-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. http:// doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR31622.v1

Bumpass, L., & Lu, H.-H. (2000). Trends in cohabita- tion and implications for children’s family contexts in the United States. Population Studies, 54, 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/713779060

Burgoyne, C. B. (1990). Money in marriage: How pat- terns of allocation both reflect and conceal power. The Sociological Review, 38, 634–665. https://doi .org/10.1111/1467-954X.ep5476701

Burgoyne, C. B. (2008). Introduction: Special issue on the household economy. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 455–457. https://doi.org/10 .1016/j.socec.2006.12.033

Burgoyne, C. B., Clarke, V., Reibstein, J., & Edmunds, A. (2006). ‘All my worldly goods I share with you’? Managing money at the transi- tion to heterosexual marriage. The Sociological Review, 54, 619–637. https://doi.org/10.1111/j .1467-954X.2006.00663.x

Burgoyne, C. B., & Lewis, A. (1994). Distribu- tive justice in marriage: Equality or equity? Journal of Community & Applied Social Psy- chology, 4, 101–114. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp .2450040204

Burgoyne, C. B., & Morison, V. (1997). Money in remarriage: Keeping things simple—And separate. The Sociological Review, 45, 363–395. https://doi .org/10.1111/1467-954X.00069

Burgoyne, C. B., Reibstein, J., Edmonds, A. M., & Routh, D. A. (2010). Marital commitment, money and marriage preparation: What changes after the wedding? Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 20, 390–403. https://doi.org/10.1002/ casp.1045

Burgoyne, C. B., Reibstein, J., Edmunds, A., & Dolman, V. (2007). Money management systems in early marriage: Factors influencing change and stability. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28,

214–228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2006.02 .003

Burns, M., Burgoyne, C. B., & Clarke, V. (2008). Financial affairs? Money management in same-sex relationships. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 481–501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2006 .12.034

Cerulo, K. A. (2014). Reassessing the problem: Response to Jerolmack and Khan. Sociological Methods & Research, 43, 219–226. https://doi .org/10.1177/0049124114526378

Cherlin, A. J. (2009). The Marriage-go-round: The state of marriage and the family in America today. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Cohen, P. N. (1998). Replacing housework in the ser- vice economy: Gender, class, and race-ethnicity in service spending. Gender & Society, 12, 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124398012002006

Cohen, P. N. (2018). The family: Diversity, inequality, and social change (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Copp, J. E., Giordano, P. C., Manning, W. D., & Long- more, M. A. (2016). Couple-level economic and career concerns and intimate partner violence in young adulthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78, 744–758. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12282

DeNavas-Walt, C., & Proctor, B. D. (2015). Income and poverty in the United States: 2014 (Current Population Reports). Retrieved from U.S. Census Bureau website: https://www.census.gov/content/ dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60- 252.pdf

Desai, S. (1992). Children at risk: The role of family structure in Latin America and West Africa. Pop- ulation and Development Review, 18, 689–717. https://doi.org/10.2307/1973760

DiMaggio, P. (2014). Comment on Jerolmack and Khan, “talk is cheap” ethnography and the attitudinal fallacy. Sociological Methods & Research, 43, 232–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0049124114526371

Elizabeth, V. (2001). Managing money, managing coupledom: A critical examination of Cohabi- tants’ money management practices. The Sociolog- ical Review, 49, 389–411. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 1467-954X.00338

Freese, J., & Druckman, J. (2016). Time-sharing experiments for the social sciences (National Science Foundation Grant No. 0818839). Retrieved from http://www.tessexperiments .org/data/pepin791.html

Gerson, K. (2009). Changing lives, resistant insti- tutions: A new generation negotiates gender, work, and family change. Sociological Forum, 24, 735–753. https://doi.org/10.2307/40542594

Goodwin, P. Y., Mosher, W. D., & Chandra, A. (2010). Marriage and cohabitation in the United States: A statistical portrait based on cycle 6 (2002) of the national survey of family growth. Vital and Health Statistics, 23, 1–46.

378 Journal of Marriage and Family

Gupta, S. (2007). Autonomy, dependence, or dis- play? The relationship between married Women’s earnings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 399–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/j .1741-3737.2007.00373.x

Hamplová, D., & Le Bourdais, C. (2009). One pot or two pot strategies? Income pooling in married and unmarried households in comparative perspec- tive. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 40, 355–385.

Hamplová, D., Le Bourdais, C., & Lapierre-Adamcyk, É. (2014). Is the cohabitation–marriage gap in money pooling universal? Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 983–997. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12138

Harris, K. M., Halpern, C. T., Whitsel, E., Hussey, J., Tabor, J., Entzel, P., & Udry, J. R. (2009). The national longitudinal study of adolescent to adult health: Research design. Retrieved from http:// www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/design.

Hausman, J., & McFadden, D. (1984). Specifica- tion tests for the multinomial logit model. Econo- metrica, 52, 1219–1240. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 1910997

Heimdal, K. R., & Houseknecht, S. K. (2003). Cohab- iting and married Couples’ income organization: Approaches in Sweden and the United States. Jour- nal of Marriage and Family, 65, 525–538. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00525.x

International Social Survey Programme Research Group. (2014). Family and changing gender roles IV variable report. GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Unter Sachsenhausen.

Kenney, C. T. (2004). Cohabiting couple, filing jointly? Resource pooling and U.S. poverty poli- cies. Family Relations, 53, 237–247. https://doi .org/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00014.x

Kenney, C. T. (2006). The power of the purse: Allocative systems and inequality in couple households. Gender & Society, 20, 354–381. https://doi.org/10.1 177/0891243206286742

Lauer, S. R., & Yodanis, C. (2011). Individualized marriage and the integration of resources. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 669–683. https://doi .org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00836.x

Lennon, M. C., & Rosenfield, S. (1994). Relative fairness and the division of housework: The impor- tance of options. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 506–531. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1086/ 230545

Lieberson, S. (2000). A matter of taste: How names, fashions, and culture change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Lundberg, S., Pollak, R. A., & Wales, T. J. (1997). Do husbands and wives Pool their resources? Evi- dence from the United Kingdom child benefit. The Journal of Human Resources, 32, 463–480. https:// doi.org/10.2307/146179

Lundberg, S., & Pollak, R. A. (2014). Cohabita- tion and the uneven retreat from marriage in the U.S., 1950-2010. In L. P. Boustan, C. Frydman, & R. A. Margo (Eds.), Human capital in history: The American record (pp. 241–272). Chicago, IL: Uni- versity of Chicago Press https://doi.org/10.3386/ w19413

Lyngstad, T. H., Noack, T., & Tufte, P. A. (2011). Pooling of economic resources: A comparison of Norwegian married and cohabiting couples. Euro- pean Sociological Review, 27, 624–635. https://doi .org/10.1093/esr/jcq028

Manning, W. D. (2013). Trends in cohabitation: Over twenty years of change, 1987–2010 (No. FP-13-12). Retrieved from National Center for Family & Marriage Research website: http://ncfmr .bgsu.edu/pdf/family_profiles/file130944.pdf

Manning, W. D., & Smock, P. J. (2002). First comes cohabitation and then comes marriage? A research note. Journal of Family Issues, 23, 1065–1087. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251302237303

Maxwell, S. E., & Delaney, H. D. (2004). Designing experiments and analyzing data: A model compar- ison perspective (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Milkie, M. A., Bianchi, S. M., Mattingly, M. J., & Robinson, J. P. (2002). Gendered division of chil- drearing: Ideals, realities, and the relationship to parental well-being. Sex Roles, 47, 21–38. https:// doi.org/10.1023/A:1020627602889

Moore, M. R. (2008). Gendered power relations among women: A study of household decision making in black, lesbian stepfamilies. American Sociological Review, 73, 335–356. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/000312240807300208

Munsch, C. L. (2015). Her support, his support: Money, masculinity, and marital infidelity. Amer- ican Sociological Review, 80, 469–495. https://doi .org/10.1177/0003122415579989

Mutz, D. C. (2011). Population-based survey experi- ments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Nyman, C., & Reinikainen, L. (2007). Elusive inde- pendence in a context of gender equality in Swe- den. In J. Stocks, C. Diaz, & B. Hallerod (Eds.), Modern couples sharing money, sharing life (pp. 41–71). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Oropesa, R. S., Landale, N. S., & Kenkre, T. (2003). Income allocation in marital and cohab- iting unions: The case of mainland Puerto Ricans. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 910–926. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737 .2003.00910.x

Pahl, J. (1989). Money and marriage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pahl, J. (1995). His money, her money: Recent research on financial organisation in marriage. Journal of Economic Psychology, 16, 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-4870(95)00015-G

Money in Families 379

Pedulla, D. S., & Thébaud, S. (2015). Can we fin- ish the revolution? Gender, work-family ideals, and institutional constraint. American Sociologi- cal Review, 80, 116–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0003122414564008

Phipps, S. A., & Burton, P. S. (1998). What’s mine is yours? The influence of male and female incomes on patterns of household expenditure. Econom- ica, 65, 599–613. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468- 0335.00148

Potuchek, J. L. (1997). Who supports the family?: Gender and breadwinning in dual-earner mar- riages (1st ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Ridgeway, C. L. (2011). Framed by gender: How gender inequality persists in the modern world. New York: Oxford University Press.

Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51, 273–286. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095521

Swidler, A. (2001). Talk of love. Chicago, IL: Univer- sity Of Chicago Press.

Tichenor, V. J. (1999). Status and income as gen- dered resources: The case of marital power. Jour- nal of Marriage and Family, 61, 638–650. https:// doi.org/10.2307/353566

Townsend, N. (2002). Package deal: Marriage, work and fatherhood in men’s lives. Philadelphia: Tem- ple University Press.

Treas, J. (1993). Money in the bank: Transaction costs and the economic organization of marriage. American Sociological Review, 58, 723–734. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096283

Vaisey, S. (2009). Motivation and justification: A dual-process model of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114, 1675–1715. https://doi .org/10.1086/592202

Vaisey, S. (2014). The “attitudinal fallacy” is a fallacy: Why we need many methods to study culture. Sociological Methods & Research, 43, 227–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124114523395

Vogler, C., Brockmann, M., & Wiggins, R. D. (2006). Intimate relationships and changing patterns of money management at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The British Journal of Sociol- ogy, 57, 455–482. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468- 4446.2006.00120.x

Vogler, C., Brockmann, M., & Wiggins, R. D. (2008). Managing money in new heterosexual forms of intimate relationships. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 552–576. https://doi.org/10 .1016/j.socec.2006.12.039

Vogler, C., & Pahl, J. (1994). Money, power and inequality within marriage. The Sociological Review, 42, 263–288. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 1467-954X.ep9407143246

Williamson, O. E. (1975). Markets and hierarchies. New York: Free Press.

Yodanis, C., & Lauer, S. (2014). Is marriage individu- alized? What couples actually do. Journal of Fam- ily Theory & Review, 6, 184–197. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jftr.12038

Zelizer, V. A. (1989). The social meaning of money: “Special monies.”. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 342–377. https://doi.org/10.1086/229272

Copyright of Journal of Marriage & Family is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.