Money management in blended and nuclear families

In Finland, 9% of the families with children are blended families. Though both the absolute number and the proportion of blended families is increasing throughout Europe, there is still little research information available on how they manage their finances. Blended families are an interesting group to study because their money management is clearly more complex than that of traditional nuclear families. In this paper I examine the extent of the differences between blended and nuclear families in money management, with special reference to bank accounts and the conducting of payments. I also seek to identify factors explaining the differences discovered. The research data comes from an Internet survey conducted in November 2006, which yielded answers from 469 Finnish families with children. The results, confirming earlier findings, suggested that money management is more separated in blended families than in nuclear ones. In nuclear families, both the bank accounts and the paying of expenditures are consistently managed jointly, whereas the spouses in blended families prefer separate bank accounts and display several different practices in the paying of common expenditures. In nuclear families the adults pay the expenditures together, but in blended ones they are responsible for the expenditures of their own biological children.