IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v37y2008i6p2291-2303.html

Income distribution and financial satisfaction between spouses in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Bonke, Jens

Abstract

The article analyses the distribution of income between spouses and the consequences for their financial satisfaction within different welfare regimes. We find that the financial satisfaction of husbands declines and that the financial satisfaction of wives increases the more a wife earns relative to her husband. However, the relationships are often of an inversed U-shaped form for both sexes, with men achieving the highest satisfaction at an earlier stage than women. Within the Scandinavian welfare state regime this optimal distribution is found closer to the actual income distribution than in the continental European and liberal regimes, and in the southern European regime the optimal distribution is far from being achieved.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonke, Jens, 2008. "Income distribution and financial satisfaction between spouses in Europe," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2291-2303, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:37:y:2008:i:6:p:2291-2303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W5H-4RGFD0W-1/2/19393395600a4dda5732d9b3bf375460
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    3. Manser, Marilyn & Brown, Murray, 1980. "Marriage and Household Decision-Making: A Bargaining Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(1), pages 31-44, February.
    4. Jens Bonke & Martin Browning, 2003. "The Distribution of Well-Being and Income within the Household," CAM Working Papers 2003-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
    5. Marjorie B. McElroy, 1990. "The Empirical Content of Nash-Bargained Household Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 559-583.
    6. Jens Bonke & Nabanita Datta Gupta & Nina Smith, 2004. "The Timing and Flexibility of Housework and Men and Women's Wages," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Economics of Time Use, pages 43-77, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    8. Shelley A. Phipps & Peter S. Burton, 1998. "What’s Mine is Yours? The Influence of Male and Female Incomes on Patterns of Household Expenditure," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(260), pages 599-613, November.
    9. Senik, Claudia, 2004. "When information dominates comparison: Learning from Russian subjective panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2099-2123, August.
    10. Martin Browning & Mette Gørtz, 2012. "Spending Time and Money within the Household," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 681-704, September.
    11. Edward N. Wolff & Ajit Zacharias, 2003. "The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_372, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Duncan Thomas, 1990. "Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 635-664.
    13. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jaslin K Kalsi & Siobhan Austen & Astghik Mavisakalyan, 2022. "Employment and the distribution of intra-household financial satisfaction," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 33(2), pages 329-350, June.
    2. Panos Mavrokonstantis, 2015. "Modern Family: Female Breadwinners and the Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Norms," STICERD - Public Economics Programme Discussion Papers 27, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    3. Lu Fan & Soomin Ryu, 2025. "Young Women’s Financial Satisfaction: The Roles of Financial Decision-Making Power, Spousal Relative Resources, and Personal Financial Characteristics," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 228-245, March.
    4. Javier G. Boncompte & Ricardo D. Paredes, 2020. "Human Capital Endowments and Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being in Chile," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 241-269, January.
    5. Namkee Ahn & Victoria Ateca-Amestoy & Arantza Ugidos, 2014. "Financial Satisfaction from an Intra-Household Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1109-1123, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xu, Zeyu, 2007. "A survey on intra-household models and evidence," MPRA Paper 3763, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Heggeness, Misty L., 2020. "Improving child welfare in middle income countries: The unintended consequence of a pro-homemaker divorce law and wait time to divorce," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    3. Mariano Rojas, 2010. "Intra-Household Arrangements and Economic Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 225-241, April.
    4. Jérôme De Henau, 2008. "Asymetric power within couples: the gendered effect of children and employment on entitlement to household income," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 51(2/3), pages 269-290.
    5. Maitra, Pushkar, 2004. "Parental bargaining, health inputs and child mortality in India," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 259-291, March.
    6. Sun, Ang & Zhao, Yaohui, 2016. "Divorce, abortion, and the child sex ratio: The impact of divorce reform in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 53-69.
    7. Diana Mok, 2007. "Do Two-earner Households Base Their Choice of Residential Location on Both Incomes?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 723-750, April.
    8. Bergolo, Marcelo & Galván, Estefanía, 2018. "Intra-household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs. Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 100-118.
    9. Adam, Christopher & Hoddinott, John & Ligon, Ethan, "undated". "Dynamic intrahousehold bargaining, matrimonial property law and suicide in Canada," CUDARE Working Papers 120422, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    10. Marianna Schaubert, 2023. "Do Alimony Regulations Matter Inside Marriage? Evidence from the 2008 Reform of the German Maintenance Law," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 145-178, June.
    11. Olivier Bargain & Miriam Beblo & Denis Beninger & Richard Blundell & Raquel Carrasco & Maria-Concetta Chiuri & François Laisney & Valérie Lechene & Nicolas Moreau & Michal Myck & Javier Ruiz-Castillo , 2006. "Does the Representation of Household Behavior Matter for Welfare Analysis of Tax-benefit Policies? An Introduction," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 99-111, June.
    12. Chiappori, Pierre-André & Donni, Olivier, 2009. "Non-unitary Models of Household Behavior: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 4603, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Robert A. Pollak, 2019. "How Bargaining in Marriage Drives Marriage Market Equilibrium," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 297-321.
    14. Robert V. Breunig & Rebecca J. McKibbin, 2012. "Income Pooling between Australian Young Adults and Their Parents," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 26(2), pages 235-265, June.
    15. Yi Zhang, 2015. "“Take My Mother-in-law…Please!”," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 633-645, December.
    16. Charlotte Ringdal & Ingrid Hoem Sjursen, 2021. "Household Bargaining and Spending on Children: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 430-455, April.
    17. Marcel Fafchamps & Bereket Kebede & Agnes R. Quisumbing, 2009. "Intrahousehold Welfare in Rural Ethiopia," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(4), pages 567-599, August.
    18. J. Bonke & M. Deding & M. Lausten, 2006. "Time and Money: Substitutes in Real Terms and Complements in Satisfactions," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_451, Levy Economics Institute.
    19. Werner Güth & Radosveta Ivanova‐Stenzel & Sigve Tjotta, 2004. "Please, Marry Me! An Experimental Study of Risking a Joint Venture," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 1-21, February.
    20. Rubalcava, L. & Thomas, D., 2000. "Family Bargaining and Welfare," Papers 00-10, RAND - Labor and Population Program.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:37:y:2008:i:6:p:2291-2303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.