Carole B. Burgoyne

Money in marriage: how patterns of allocation both reflect and conceal power

This paper examines perceptions of money within marriage, focusing upon the concepts of control and ownership. It considers the criteria involved in Pahls (1983; 1989) typology for the allocation of income, and their ability to capture the dynamic perceptual elements associated with change. These issues were explored by means of data from semi-structured interviews, using mainly middle-class couples (thirteen women and nine of their partners) in the 30–50 year age-range. Most of the women were in the process of returning to the labour market following an absence of at least eight years. The findings demonstrate, on the one hand, that Pahls revised typology (1989), which includes an emphasis on the person possessing overall control, can be used to trace major shifts in the balance of economic power as a function of the life-cycle and associated changes in the source of income. On the other hand, the findings also show that a couples report of their financial arrangements, concerning the ‘pooling’ of income, can yield the erroneous impression that resources are equally shared. In particular, the ‘rights’ of ownership associated with having earned the income may remain hidden, and lead to patterns of overall control with potential consequences for a non-earning, dependent partner.

Money in remarriage : Keeping things simple - and separate

This paper investigates money matters in remarried couples. The number of such couples is on the increase, and their financial affairs are likely to be more complex and conflictual than for first-married couples, but there has been little research attention paid to this group in Britain. The present study explores patterns of control and management of money by means of data from semi-structured interviews with 20 couples in which one partner or both had been married before. The men and women were interviewed separately, but in the majority of cases, simultaneously, in separate rooms. This yielded data from 38 interviews since two men declined to take part in the study. Ages of respondents ranged from 28 to 83, with the majority in the 30–55 range. At the time of the study, only half still had dependent children, and not all of the latter were co-resident. A key finding of the study is a degree of separateness in financial arrangements that is in sharp contrast to earlier findings. As many as half of the couples were using an Independent Management system, compared with less than 2 per cent of couples in general. For those with children from previous relationships, this separateness was especially marked in the way they wished their assets to be treated after their death. However, in line with earlier studies, the balance of economic power in second and subsequent marriages still appeared to favour the men, who generally had larger incomes and owned more assets in their own names.

Social class and underclass in Britain and the USA

It is commonly argued that the research programme of class analysis is undermined by its appararent neglect of large numbers of economically-inactive adults who do not form part of the analysis, but are affected by class processes, and form distinctive elements within any class structure. This paper disputes the claim that welfare dependents, the retired, and domestic housekeepers show distinctive patterns of socio-political class formation. Nor are the class-related attributes of the supposed underclass so distinct that they require separate treatment in a class analysis. Evidence which supports the orthodox strategy of sampling economically-active men and women is taken from national sample surveys of adults in Britain and the USA.

‘All my worldly goods I share with you’? Managing money at the transition to heterosexual marriage

Studies in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that financial arrangements in marriage tended to disadvantage women, especially those with young children. However, much of that research focused upon relatively well-established married (or remarried) couples, and we have little insight into the choices that todays newly-weds are making, or what influences their choices. To address this gap in our understanding, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with forty-two heterosexual couples on the brink of their first marriage. We explored their monetary practices and the way that they thought about money in the relationship. The results of a grounded theory analysis showed that six couples were pooling all or most of their money, fifteen were using a partial-pooling system, twenty were using an independent management system (with separate accounts), and one couple had an arrangement where all the money was controlled and managed by one partner. A key factor was perceived ownership of money, and this influenced the extent to which finances were being merged and treated as a collective resource. Other factors included the couples current living arrangements and beliefs about the importance of sharing and independence within the relationship.

The Transition to the Euro: Some Perspectives from Economic Psychology

The reactions of EU consumers to the arrival of the euro are likely to be far more complex than peoples typical pragmatic and expedient adaptations to everyday economic change. This article discusses the major problems and psychological issues that are likely to arise in domains where the euro can be expected to have a major impact. More specifically, the domains considered include the following: the symbolic meanings of money; learning, remembering and information- processing; judgement and decision-making; expectations, concerns, and beliefs of EU citizens (consumers); and, propaganda, communication and attitude change. The article concludes with a number of tentative policy recommendations.

Constraints on the use of money as a gift at Christmas: the role of status and intimacy

Abstract Recent studies have revealed the existence of interesting constraints on the use of money as a gift. The present investigation attempted to focus on their psychological bases by using an extended-diary method to study aspects of the Christmas gifts given and received by 92 UK undergraduates. Our findings from several correspondence analyses suggest that, in any given relationship, a gift must be capable of carrying meaningful information concerning the level of intimacy and the relative status existing between donor and recipient. In contrast, money was found to lack the necessary attributes for conveying information concerning intimacy, but also to possess attributes that may transmit inappropriate messages relating to status.

Explaining attitudes towards the euro: Design of a cross-national study

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to provide essential background material relating to the accom-panying papers in this special issue. It presents a brief description of the ‘Psychology of theEuropean Monetary Union’ project. This involved a questionnaire study of attitudes towardsthe euro, which was fielded in each of the 15 member states of the European Union in thesummer of 1997. We describe the development of the common survey instrument, and outlinethe rationale and methods pursued in sampling particular conceptual domains. The paper alsodetails the sampling procedures used in each country, together with the response rates andsample sizes attained. Finally, it o•ers a brief cross-national comparison of overall attitudes tothe euro. O 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.PsycINFO classification: 2229; 3920JEL classification: D63; D84; E52; F33Keywords: Control; Currency; Euro; Expectations; Equity; European union; Economic andmonetary union; Money; National identity; Satisfaction; Values

Tax communication and social influence: evidence from a British sample

An in-depth, semi-structured, interview study was conducted with 23 British employed and self-employed taxpayers in various occupations. The study points to factors discouraging tax communication and proposes social norms as an alternative way of investigating social influence on taxpaying behaviour. Copyright

Heart-Strings and Purse-Strings: Money in Heterosexual Marriage

Growing up in a fairly typical working-class family I was aware at an early age of the explicit connection of money with power. My father’s role as sole breadwinner meant that he could decide how much to allocate to the housekeeping and how much to keep for himself. My mother had little say in this but had the difficult task of making the money stretch. When I got married I naively assumed that a joint account was the answer. Since I was ‘better at figures’ I even ran the household accounts, so surely things would be hunky-dory – right? Wrong! I soon came to realize that the power that comes with being the breadwinner can be much more subtle and that even a joint account does not guarantee an equal say. Somehow the fact that I was doing everything except earning the money did not ‘add up’ to an equal contribution. As a full-time housewife in a traditional marriage, I had no money of my own, though my husband used what he wanted without question for cigarettes and so on. If I wanted to buy him a present or myself a cup of coffee, I was using ‘his’ money. My experience is clearly not unique, so when I began my research in 1986 I was astonished to find that it was such a neglected topic. There was plenty of material on falling in love and dissolving intimate relationships (e.g. Duck, 1986, 1988), and feminist texts on housework and the division of labour between the sexes (e.g. Oakley, 1974; Okin, 1989), but very little on the way that money can shape and constrain those relationships. One of the first feminist researchers to focus specifically on money in marriage was Jan Pahl who came across the problem pretty much by accident when she was interviewing women who were victims of domestic violence (see Pahl, 1989). These women considered themselves better off financially living in a refuge on state benefits than when they had been at home with a male breadwinner, even though some of the men had had substantial incomes. The reason was that even with much less money coming in, the women could now decide for themselves how that money should be spent.

Being in two minds about a single currency: A UK perspective on the euro

Recent public opinion polls show that the majority of UK citizens are opposed to replacing the pound by the euro. In this paper, we report an initial attempt to elucidate some of the psychological bases of this adherence to the status quo. We tested a latent variable model which postulates that there are two kinds of attachment to national identity, cultural and instrumental attachment, each having both direct and indirect influences upon anti-euro sentiment. The former kind of attachment reflects the symbolic aspects of nationhood, whilst the latter captures the benefits of citizenship, such as the quality and delivery of social goods. Secondly, we investigated the extent to which peoples expectations about euro benefits mediates the impact of attachment on anti-euro sentiment. It was found that only cultural attachment had a direct, amplifying effect upon anti-euro sentiment, whilst both forms of attachment had indirect effects via their opposite influences upon euro benefits. Cultural and instrumental attachment respectively had attenuating and amplifying effects on the latter, which itself tended to act as an attenuator on the level of anti-euro sentiment.