Resources and decision making

Resources and decision making

1. There is both inequality in who does what in the home, but also in who gets what

2. Barrett and McIntosh note that:

   • Men gain far more women's domestic work than they give back in financial support
   • The financial support that husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with 'strings' attached
   • Men usually make the decisions about spending on important items

3. Research shows that family members do not share resources such as money and food equally

   • Kempson found that, among low-income families, women denied their own needs, seldom going out, and eating smaller portions or food or skipping meals altogether in order to make ends meet
   • Grahams found that over half the wome who were living on benefits after separating from their husbands said that they and their children were actually better off. They found that benefits were a more reliable source of income than their husbands' earnings
   • In many households, a woman has no entitlement to a share of household resources. As a result, she is likely to see anything she spends on herself as money that could be spend on essentials for the children

4. Decision making and paid work

   • Men often take a greater share of the families resources because they usually provide more economically
   • Pahl and Vogler focus on how income contribution affects decision making. They identify two main types of control over family income:
     • Pooling - where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure. E.g. a joint bank account
       • Pooling is on the increase (19% to 50% by 1994)
       • Pooling is most common when partners both work full-time. However, the males still tend to make the biggest financial decisions
         • Hardill's research supports this: she found that important decisions were taken either by the man when deciding whether to move house for a new job
         • Finch's research supports this: she found that women's lives tend to be structured around their husbands' careers
         • Edgell found that:
           • Very important decisions (finance, job change or moving house) were either taken by the husband alone or taken jointly with the husband having the final say
           • Important decisions (holiday) were usually taken jointly, and seldom by the wife alone
           • Less important decisions (food purchases) were usually made by the wife
     • Allowance system - where men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget meet the family's needs, with the man retaining any surplus income for himself

5. Edgell, Vogler and Pahl believe that decision making is affected by income, and because men tend to earn more then women and women are dependent on men, they make the most decisions

6. Some feminists believe that it is more than just income that affects decision making; in a patriarchal society, the cultural definition of men as decision makers is deeply ingrained and instilled through gender role socialisation. Until this is challenged, decision making is likely to remain unequal