Resources and decision making

• What is another inequality within a couple?

  Who gets what - in how the family's resources are shared out between men and women. This linked to who controls the family income and who has the power to make decisions
• Give reasons FOR resources and decision making being more equal?


  - Money management

  - Decision Making
• How is money management more equal within couples

  Pahl and Vogler identified the pooling system being used within couples
• What is the pooling system

  Both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditures , for example a joint banks account. Pooling is on the increase and is now the most common money management system
• How is decision making more equal within couples?

  There is some evidence of a limitied move towards greater equality in financial decision making. Laurie and Gershuny (2000) found that by 1995, 70% of couples said they found that women who were high earning , well qualified were more like to have an equal say
• Give reasons AGAINST for resources and decision making being more equal?

  - Money management

  - Decision making
• How is money management not equal within couples?

  Men still control finical decisions within the home
• What is an example of men controlling financial decisions within the home?

  The allowance system identified by Pahl and Vogler
• What is the allowance system?

  Where men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the family's needs, with the man retaining any surplus income for himself
• How is decision making not equal within couples?

  Most important decisions taken jointly our by man alone
• What is evidence for decision making being unequal within couples?

  Hardill study of 30 dual career professional couples found that the important decisions were usually taken by the man alone or jointly and that his career normally took priority when deciding whether to move house for a new job
• Why does Edgell argue men are likely to take decisions?

  Is because they earn more. Women usually earn less than their husbands and , being dependent on them economically, have less say in decision-making