Does husband or wife make the money decisions in your home?
In Canada, at least over the past 30 years, women are becoming more and more educated than men.
Today, 34 per cent of women aged 25-34 hold a university degree, compared to just 26 per cent of men. That rate for women is up significantly from the 1980s.
While a higher level of education for women may not do much to close the gender wage gap, it does plenty to the dynamic of Canadian inter-home economics.
Because, after all, who's best-suited to manage the money in your home: the man, or the woman?
Certainly, few issues could be as delicate as the finances of a traditional family. What goes on behind your closed doors, with your money, is your business.
*Bing: What education savings plans are right for your kids?
But let’s use the anonymity of the Internet to drum up a conversation on familial money management in 2012.
The correlation with education and the ability to balance a family’s chequebook may not be ironclad, but it’s nonetheless relevant, especially so at a time when education patterns among men and women are changing.
(According to Stats Canada data, just 38 per cent of university-educated men had an equally well-educated wife in 1981. By 2006, that number had jumped to 67 per cent.)
Research from Italy shows such a similar decrease in the education gap between men and women has led to a shift in Italian homes, where an increased number of women are being counted on to be the chief bankers and money managers of their family.
In your home, how do you decide who pays the bills, manages the accounts and makes the financial decisions? If you live in a traditional household, is it the man, the woman, or both?
Posted by: Dave | Dec 1, 2021 3:25:38 AM
I've yet to meet a couple where the person who "makes the financial decisions" is the man OR the woman.
Both influence the financial position of the household. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't see the a months worth of grocery receipts or the receipts for the car/garden.
There are people who insist upon tight control of family finances. These people are either initially (or eventually) referred to as 'single'.
Posted by: Craig | Dec 4, 2021 10:41:06 AM
I was going to post a comment about how it usually works in a stable home, but I see Dave beat me to it.
+1 Dave.
Posted by: Colour of money | Dec 5, 2021 9:17:10 AM
I disagree with the above comments.
Households are all different. I control the budget entirely. I make about 65-70% of the income, am the most educated in the family, and control all the money. We have three bank accounts, one for me, one for my wife, and one for the family. The family account is a joint account, and is where my wife's paycheck is direct deposited to. My paycheck gets sent to my account. I go grocery shopping and pay all the bills from the joint account and my account. My wife gets an allowance for discretionary spending which is equal to mine. Her amount is deposited into her account each month.
She has access to all the accounts, and to the budget spreadsheet at home. She and I discuss all purchases before hand and go over the budget every couple of months.
She is more likely to spend recklessly than I am, so this division of labour works for us. This is how it has been for us for the last 10 years or so. Seems to be working fine so far.
Posted by: Jake | Dec 5, 2021 9:38:23 AM
The trend of women having more time to attain a university degree has been ongoing for decades. As usual, women don't want to do grunt work such as building roads, buildings and homes. There is little time for men to keep up with going to university while they are brainwashed from birth to be strong and rough to withstand and weather the life of contruction. For all that women learn in university, they don't do much with the knowledge other than build superstructures of word systems. Educated women don't defend the country, warm its peoples with homes and buildings. They don't grow the crops or the livestocks that feed the nation and others. What women are really good at is putting down men and duping them into feeling that they are equal on all grounds. Sure women excel in school. That's because that's all they do is go to school...and then the teachers who are women want to complain about too many hours and not enough pay. If women spent as much time doing actual work that provides for the peoples of the nation --- so much more would get done. Being intelligent as for books and memory doesn't mean ambition and skill to use it. I know women that have masters degrees that sell bicycles. These same women often out talk and out wit the customer into buying something they don't want or miss the sale compleletely. And then there are the educated women who walk around imagining their pretty faces are so glamorous that they should have gold spoons to stir their teas at Starbucks...not to mention that most of these women are less than good looking and especially if you take about 200grams of paste off their faces. Even the ugliest women of Canada's women today walk around feeling that they are Miss Canada. I've never seen in my life such a delusional bunch of people. Women shun men on a daily basis with this holier than thou attitude with their false looks and education of wit. These same women are going to die out without enough children having been born for the country to sustain it's population. We are seeing the Canadian population die out right now before our eyes to point that the government has appointed departments to go out into the world and solicit coming to Canada to repopulate it. That folks is the extent of all these educated women doing their jobs as women. They have degrees -- but, no children. God gave us women to born children. If they don't fulfill that requirement then they aren't much use to mankind as women because men sure can't bare children. Women do have a choice. Bare kids or kill out your people. Which one will make you more inetilligent in the end.
Posted by: MumWhoChose | Dec 6, 2021 3:18:43 PM
@Jake, similar to Arnold in one of his movies, you 'men' (stated with brackets, I don't actually qualify you to walk upright with that view) CAN bear children. Might be a bit more painful, and yes, you'd be an obligate c-section, but the whole attitude of that's what we're FOR?!
Any time you wish, take over running a household, caring for the children (and often a career as well). Then get back to us less than human counterparts.
Posted by: Joann@PaydayLoans@ | Dec 10, 2021 3:26:13 AM
I think that a man and a woman should have equal rights to make financial decisions, especially if both of them bring money to the family budget. People should respect other’s decisions, because in any case, their interests and expenses may differ a bit. Basically, women should take care of household and manage expenses, but I think that all the important purchases have to be discussed. Money decisions should be taken together, because it’s absolutely right if you will ask your second half to give you an advice towards buying on or another thing and you both can think if this purchase is so necessary or not.