What's Mine Is Ours? Income Pooling in American Families

• Author: Kasey J. Eickmeyer,Wendy D. Manning,Susan L. Brown
• Published date: 01 August 2019
• Date: 01 August 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12565

K J. E , W D. M,  S L. B Bowling Green State

University

What’s Mine Is Ours? Income Pooling in

American Families

Objective: The objective of this study is to deter-

mine whether income-pooling strategies differ

between married and cohabiting individuals

without children, only biological children, or

any stepchildren.

Background: Americans are forming families

in new ways via cohabitation and stepfamilies,

which may have implications for resource

pooling. Although a majority of married

and cohabiting couples pool their incomes, little

is known about the role of children in couple’s

income-pooling behaviors.

Method: The authors use recently collected,

nationally representative data fromthe Families

and Relationships Study (n=4,362). Control-

ling for sociodemographic, household, and rela-

tionship characteristics, the authors use logistic

regressionto predict the odds of income pooling

among married and cohabiting individuals with-

out children, only biological children, or any

stepchildren.

Results: The likelihood of income pooling

remained similar among cohabitors regard-

less of the conguration of children in the

household. Among married families, however,

the likelihood of income pooling differed by the

presence of resident stepchildren. Married

families with resident stepchildren had a lower

Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University,

Bowling Green, OH 43402 (eickmek@bgsu.edu).

Key Words: cohabiting couples with children,family demog-

raphy, family economics, family resourcemanagement.

probability of pooling their income when com-

pared with married families with only resident

biological children.

Conclusion: The ways economic resources are

shared differs across family types. The ndings

from this study areconsistent with an incomplete

institutionalization perspective and demonstrate

that individuals in cohabiting-couple fami-

lies and married-couple families with resident

stepchildren areless likely to pool their incomes.

INTRODUCTION

Although a majority of married and cohab-

iting couples pool their incomes (Addo &

Sassler, 2010; Hamplova & Le Bourdais,

2009; Heimdal & Houseknecht, 2003), little

is known about the role of children in cou-

ple’s income-pooling behaviors. Understanding

patterns of income pooling across families is

paramount to understanding differentials in

advantage among children and informing public

policy. Although monetary support of biological

children is legally and socially sanctioned,

stepparent–stepchild relationships and corre-

sponding investments continue to be nebulous

and incompletely institutionalized (Cherlin,

2004; Hofferth & Anderson, 2003). Thus, the

presence of a stepchild may diminish the like-

lihood that the couple pools their economic

resources when compared with having only

resident biological children.

This distinction may be particularly salient

among contemporary families, as family expe-

riences and expectations are not uniform.

968 Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (August 2019): 968–978

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12565