Gender Differences in Couples' Matrimonial Property Regime in Italy

• Author: Agnese Vitali,Romina Fraboni
• Published date: 01 August 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12574
• Date: 01 August 2019

R F Istat - Italian National Institute of Statistics

A V University of Trento∗

Gender Differences in Couples’ Matrimonial

Property Regime in Italy

Objective: This study investigates the character-

istics of spouses in Italy who choose to pool their

economic resources.

Background: If resource pooling is common

among male-breadwinner couples, expecta-

tions regarding resource pooling are mixed

for female-breadwinner couples or, more

generally, for couples with wives who are

economically advantaged when compared

with their husbands. This study asks whether

resource-pooling strategies differ between cou-

ples with economically advantaged husbands,

couples with economically advantaged wives,

and couples in which spouses have similar

economic resources.

Method: The article uses an objective measure

of pooling of wealth available for Italy at the

time of marriage: the matrimonial property

regime, indicating the choice between a shared

or separate ownership of assets accumulated

during marriage. Using data fromthe 2015 mar-

riage register, the article models the probability

that a couple chooses the community of property

with a logistic regression model.

Istat-Italian National Institute of Statistics, Via Cesare

Balbo 16, Rome 00184, Italy (fraboni@istat.it). The views

and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author

and do not necessarily reect the position of the Italian

National Institute of Statistics (Istat).

∗Department of Sociology and Social Research, University

of Trento, ViaVerdi, 26, 38122, Trento, Italy. Most parts of

this paper were written while the author was afliated at the

University of Southampton.

Key Words: family economics, family resourcemanagement,

gender,marriage, money management.

Results: Couples with husbands who were

economically advantaged when compared

with their wives (i.e., the husband was older,

more educated, or employed with a nonemployed

wife) were more likely to choose the commu-

nity of property when compared with couples

with similar resources (both spouses were

employed, of similar age or educational attain-

ment); conversely, couples with economically

advantaged wives were more likely to choose

the separation of property.

Conclusion: Economically advantaged women

seem to be “undoing gender” by protecting

their economic resources via the separation of

property.

Since the Family Law was established in 1975

(G.U., 1975), at marriage Italian couples are

asked to decide on the matrimonial property

regime that they want to adopt. During or after

the wedding ceremony, in both civil and reli-

gious marriages and at the presence of their

witnesses, the spouses are asked by the wed-

ding ofcial whether they want to opt for the

community or the separation of property. In

case of divorce or separation, family assets are

distributed equally among spouses who opted

for the community of property, regardless of

whether the assets were purchased jointly or

separately. Under the separation of property,

spouses maintain sole ownership of assets

accumulated during marriage.

The choice over the community or separa-

tion of property has a long-lasting effect on

spouses’ wealth and their right to use, sell, and

Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (August 2019): 885–904 885

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12574

886 Journal of Marriage and Family

buy property because it regulates the owner-

ship (joint or separate, respectively) of the assets

accumulated during marriage. The matrimonial

property regime represents an objective measure

of resource pooling among spouses that refers

specically to the allocation of wealth. Hence,

the matrimonial property regime can offer a dif-

ferent perspective to the study of resource pool-

ing, building on previous work that has used

self-reported measures only, such as control,

management, and use of economic resources

(see, e.g., Lundberg & Pollak, 1996; Pahl, 1995).

Because the matrimonial property regime is

recorded in the marriage certicate, such infor-

mation is availablefor the whole population mar-

rying in a given year from the marriage reg-

ister. This allows us to study population sub-

groups, including female-breadwinner couples

(i.e., couples with employed wives and nonem-

ployed husbands), whom we would not be able

to capture in sample surveys.

The property regime also has the advantage of

measuring the preference regarding (one aspect

of) resource pooling at the time of marriage

(Burgoyne, Clarke, Reibstein, & Edmunds,

2006). The choice of property regime reects

couples’ relationship expectations and cultural

norms at marriage, before they are inuenced

by later transitions, such as childbearing, which

can result in the acceptance of more traditional

gender roles (Burgoyne et al., 2006). By using

a measure of resource pooling at the time of

marriage, we can describe the demographic and

economic characteristics of spouses (e.g., age,

educational attainment, employment status)

at the time when the decision regarding the

separation or pooling of assets is made. Thus,

the study addresses a shortcoming of previous

studies in that they observe the characteristics

of spouses at the time of the survey only, even

if the decision over resource management was

taken long before the survey date.

Similar to other institutions introduced in

Italy by the 1975 Family Law, the property

regime was inspired by patriarchal values reg-

ulating the family life (Rheinstein, 1975): The

breadwinner–homemaker couple was the norm,

and wives were largely economically dependent

on their husbands (Saraceno, 1994). The deci-

sion to establish the community of property as

the default property regime was justied on the

grounds that shared ownership of property could

foster greater equality between spouses, inde-

pendently of their economic role outside the

household. Hence, it could economically protect

(nonworking) wives during marriage and in case

of divorce (Barbagli, 1993; Pocar & Ronfani,

1978). The tendency toward sharing economic

resources equally among spouses was also com-

mon to other developed countries during the

1970s and 1980s (Kenney,2006; Rešetar, 2008).

Since the 1970s, however, Italian wives have

become more economically independent. For

example, 66.0% of wives are employed at the

time of marriage in 2015, up from 55.8% in

1975 (Istat, 2016; Istat, 1978). In addition,

a new couple type has started to emerge in

which the economic dependence of spouses is

reversed: the female-breadwinner couple (i.e.,

with an employed woman and nonemployed

man). In 2015, female-breadwinner couples

represented 14.3% of all breadwinning couples

(i.e., only one partner employed) up from 6.9%

in 2008 (own elaborations on data from Labour

Force Survey). The emergence of couples with

reversed gender roles when compared with the

traditional norms has been particularly rele-

vant following the 2008 economic crisis and is

common to other Southern European countries,

which, similar to Italy, were hardest hit by the

crisis (Vitali & Arpino, 2016). Whereas the

community of property was the norm for the

traditional male-breadwinner couples of the past

(Barbagli, 1993; Lundberg & Pollak, 1996),

expectations regarding resource pooling are

mixed for couples in which the woman works or

is the breadwinner (Kenney, 2006; Lott, 2017;

Pepin, 2017; Tichenor, 1999; Yodanis & Lauer,

2007).

This article studies the characteristics of

spouses who opt for the community versus the

separation of property among the 2015 mar-

riage cohort. We describe the property regime

across couples in which wives (a) are eco-

nomically disadvantaged, (b) are economically

advantaged, and (c) have the same economic

characteristics as their husbands. By exploring

the links between the chosen property regime

and the spouses’ (in)equality in terms of their

economic characteristics, we shed light on how

modern couples’ resource-pooling strategies

potentially vary according to the gender of the

economically (dis)advantaged spouse.

W     

 

Under the community of property, spouses

are requested to share jointly any decision