IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/reveho/v5y2007i1p59-82.html

Disagreement in Australian partners’ reports of financial difficulty

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Breunig

  • Deborah Cobb-Clark
  • Xiaodong Gong
  • Danielle Venn

Abstract

We use unique data in which both partners report about household finances to demonstrate that there is often disagreement about whether the household has experienced financial difficulty in the past year. Four alternative explanations for this disagreement are tested using the data. The results indicate that disagreement may be related to the severity of the underlying material hardship rather than to gender differences or individual (as opposed to household) views of financial difficulty. We find limited evidence that for some couples information asymmetries contribute to explaining disagreement about financial difficulty. This implies that standard surveys which collect information about the household’s financial position from a representative individual may fail to completely characterize the nature of material hardship. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Breunig & Deborah Cobb-Clark & Xiaodong Gong & Danielle Venn, 2007. "Disagreement in Australian partners’ reports of financial difficulty," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 59-82, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:5:y:2007:i:1:p:59-82
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-007-9005-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11150-007-9005-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11150-007-9005-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susan E. Mayer & Christopher Jencks, 1989. "Poverty and the Distribution of Material Hardship," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(1), pages 88-114.
    2. Plug, Erik J. S. & Van Praag, Bernard M. S., 1998. "Similarity in response behavior between household members: An application to income evaluation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 497-513, August.
    3. Bergstrom, Theodore C., 1997. "A survey of theories of the family," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 21-79, Elsevier.
    4. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-333, March.
    5. Zagorsky, Jay L., 2003. "Husbands' and wives' view of the family finances," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 127-146, May.
    6. Pahl, Jan, 1995. "His money, her money: Recent research on financial organisation in marriage," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 361-376, September.
    7. Mark Wooden & Simon Freidin & Nicole Watson, 2002. "The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)Survey: Wave 1," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 35(3), pages 339-348, September.
    8. Gianni La Cava & John Simon, 2003. "A Tale of Two Surveys: Household Debt and Financial Constraints in Australia," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2003-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    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. Zhiming Cheng & Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R. Paloyo & David A. Savage & Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Working parents, financial insecurity, and childcare: mental health in the time of COVID-19 in the UK," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 123-144, March.
    2. Robert Breunig & Syed Hasan & Boyd Hunter, 2019. "Financial Stress and Indigenous Australians," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 95(308), pages 34-57, March.
    3. Carin Cruijsen & Marie-Claire Broekhoff & Joris Knoben, 2025. "Mind the Gap: Gender Differences in Household Payment Tasks," De Economist, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 385-424, July.
    4. Botha, Ferdi & Ribar, David C., 2023. "For worse? Financial hardships and intra-household resource allocation among Australian couples," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    5. Ferdi Botha & David C. Ribar & Chandana Maitra & Roger Wilkins, 2024. "The co‐occurrence of food insecurity and other hardships in Australia," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(4), pages 1319-1337, December.
    6. Merike Kukk, 2019. "Debt repayment problems: short-term and long-term implications for spending," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 715-740, June.
    7. Carin van der Cruijsen & Dörthe Kunkel & Rick Nijkamp, 2025. "Who manages the household purse? Factors shaping payment task allocation between partners and its implications," Working Papers 851, DNB.
    8. Pedro Quintín Quílez, 2008. "Vida conyugal y desigualdades de género en Cali (Colombia)," Revista Sociedad y Economía, Universidad del Valle, CIDSE.
    9. Headey, Derek D. & Ecker, Olivier, 2012. "Improving the measurement of food security," IFPRI discussion papers 1225, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    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. Robert Breunig & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Xiaodong Gong & Daniella Venn, 2005. "Disagreement in Partners’ Reports of Financial Difficulty," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2005-453, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    2. Kasey J. Eickmeyer & Wendy D. Manning & Monica A. Longmore & Peggy C. Giordano, 2023. "Exploring the Married-Cohabiting Income Pooling Gap Among Young Adults," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 990-1006, December.
    3. Jeffrey Dew, 2011. "The Association Between Consumer Debt and the Likelihood of Divorce," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 554-565, December.
    4. Fabrice Gilles & Sabina Issehnane & Florent Sari, 2022. "Using short-term jobs as a way to find a regular job. What kind of role for local context?," TEPP Working Paper 2022-07, TEPP.
    5. Mattia Guerini & Patrick Musso & Lionel Nesta, 2020. "Estimation of Threshold Distributions for Market Participation," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2020-15, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    6. Christian Bach & Peter O. Christensen, 2016. "Consumption-based equity valuation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1149-1202, December.
    7. Ruey-Ching Hwang & Jhao-Siang Siao & Huimin Chung & C. Chu, 2011. "Assessing bankruptcy prediction models via information content of technical inefficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 263-273, December.
    8. Todd Guilfoos & Andreas Duus Pape, 2020. "Estimating Case-Based Learning," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, September.
    9. Mihailo Radoman & Marcel C. Voia, 2015. "Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(2), pages 163-193, June.
    10. Vipin Arora & Shuping Shi, 2016. "Nonlinearities and tests of asset price bubbles," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1421-1433, June.
    11. Maria del Carmen Melgar & Jose Antonio Ordaz, 2010. "The Utility Of Zero-Inflated Models In The Estimation Of The Number Of Accidents In The Automobile Insurance Industry," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 5(2), pages 181-194, December.
    12. Calvet, Laurent E. & Fisher, Adlai J., 2007. "Multifrequency news and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 178-212, October.
    13. Robert Pollak, 2003. "Gary Becker's Contributions to Family and Household Economics," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 111-141, January.
    14. Luiz Paulo Fávero & Joseph F. Hair & Rafael de Freitas Souza & Matheus Albergaria & Talles V. Brugni, 2021. "Zero-Inflated Generalized Linear Mixed Models: A Better Way to Understand Data Relationships," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-28, May.
    15. Small, Kenneth A & Winston, Clifford & Yan, Jia, 2002. "Uncovering the Distribution of Motorists' Preferences for Travel Time and Reliability: Implications for Road Pricing," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt8zd2r34k, University of California Transportation Center.
    16. Da Fonseca José & Grasselli Martino & Ielpo Florian, 2014. "Estimating the Wishart Affine Stochastic Correlation Model using the empirical characteristic function," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 253-289, May.
    17. Das, Marcel & van Soest, Arthur, 1999. "A panel data model for subjective information on household income growth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 409-426, December.
    18. Gillespie, Colin S., 2015. "Fitting Heavy Tailed Distributions: The poweRlaw Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i02).
    19. Ben Zhang & Xiaohong Wang, 2017. "Empirical study on influence of university-industry collaboration on research performance and moderating effect of social capital: evidence from engineering academics in China," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 257-277, October.
    20. Lars Hornuf & Armin Schwienbacher, 2015. "Funding Dynamics in Crowdinvesting," Research Papers in Economics 2015-09, University of Trier, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    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:kap:reveho:v:5:y:2007:i:1:p:59-82. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.