Unpacking Within‐Household Gender Differences in Partners' Subjective Benefits From Household Income

• Date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12027
• Published date: 01 June 2013
• Author: Jerome De Henau,Susan Himmelweit

JEROME DEHENAU AND SUSAN HIMMELWEIT The Open University

Unpacking Within-Household Gender Differences

in Partners’ Subjective Benef‌its From Household

Income

The authors examine how contributions to

household resources, indicated by employment

status, inf‌luence satisfaction with household

income (SWHI) for members of male/female

couples. They take changes in SWHI, which may

differ within couples, to indicate changes in

perceived benef‌its from their common household

income, benef‌its that can go beyond individual

consumption. Using data from the British

Household Panel Survey for 2,396 couples from

1996 to 2007, three gender effects are identif‌ied.

First, men predominate in making the type

of contribution that most positively inf‌luences

SWHI, namely, full-time employment. Second,

the effect of contributions depends on the gender

of the contributor, with men’s employment

being more inf‌luential than women’s. Third,

within couples, making the more inf‌luential

contribution, as men tend to do, leads to

relatively greater SWHI. The authors conclude

that gender asymmetry in contributions made to

household resources is one way in which gender

inequalities invade and inhabit households.

In this article, we develop a new method

for investigating how gender inf‌luences the

distribution of resources within households

Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Walton

Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom

(j.de-henau@open.ac.uk and s.f.himmelweit@open.ac.uk).

This article was edited by Fran Bennett.

Key Words: family resource management, gender, inequal-

ity, paid work, spousal roles, unpaid family work.

by comparing answers to a question about

satisfaction with household income (hereafter

SWHI) between members of a male – female

couple. This gives subjective evidence on how

the benef‌its of that joint household income are

distributed. SWHI has the advantage that it may

capture benef‌its of household income that are

not specif‌ically about individual consumption

but might include, for example, aspects of

f‌inancial autonomy, opportunities, security,

status, and collective expenditure, including on

household public goods. By using an individual

subjective measure, we use each respondent’s

own assessment of how those not objectively

commensurable benef‌its are balanced against

one another.

Following the f‌indings of psychologists who

have extensively studied the validity and inter-

pretation of such subjective ‘‘satisfaction’’ vari-

ables, we assume that people’s SWHI depends

on how far it allows them to make progress

‘‘toward valued goals’’ (Diener, Suh, Lucas, &

Smith, 1999, p. 295). For single-person house-

holds this correspondence is straightforward, but

for couples the pursuit of an individual’s goals

will depend not only on the level of the house-

hold income but also on the extent to which he

or she can use joint household income to bene-

f‌it in that way (Vogler, 1998). Given that both

members of a couple are assessing the same

household income, it is reasonable to assume

that if their relative opportunities to benef‌it from

that income shifts, then so might their relative

satisfaction with it. This can be investigated by

examining the factors affecting the difference in

a couple’s answers, controlling for other possible

Journal of Marriage and Family 75 (June 2013): 611 –624 611

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12027