توزیع درآمد و رضایت مالی بین زن و شوهر در اروپا

The article analyses the distribution of income between spouses and the consequences for their financial satisfaction within different welfare regimes. We find that the financial satisfaction of husbands declines and that the financial satisfaction of wives increases the more a wife earns relative to her husband. However, the relationships are often of an inversed U-shaped form for both sexes, with men achieving the highest satisfaction at an earlier stage than women. Within the Scandinavian welfare state regime this optimal distribution is found closer to the actual income distribution than in the continental European and liberal regimes, and in the southern European regime the optimal distribution is far from being achieved.

Since the 1960’ a trend towards a more equal distribution of income between spouses has appeared in most advanced countries. Nevertheless, there is still great deviance in spousal income shares. The Scandinavian countries are the most equal followed by the continental European countries with the southern European countries as the least equal. The important question is if this inequality in income distribution has an impact on the distribution of output within the family and/or if it affects the satisfaction of the individual family member. As there are no reliable data on the distribution of output within the family,1 this article focuses only on the relationship between the income distribution between the spouses and their individual financial satisfaction.2 Furthermore, the discrepancy between the income distribution yielding the highest level of satisfaction and the actual income distribution is examined for the European union countries. The assumption is that neither spouse is in an optimal situation, because spousal preferences and aspirations might not be met due to the different preference structures and bargaining powers of the two parties. Thus, the optimal income share3 is most likely higher for the wife and lower for the husband than the actual income share in the household. However, it is expected that the “optimum” point falls near the actual point of sharing, as disparity could imply spousal dissatisfaction threatening the stability of the marriage, ultimately leading to divorce. This paper comprises seven sections: the first section is the introduction; Section 2 gives the theoretical background for studying the relationship between the distribution of income and the distribution of financial satisfaction between spouses; Section 3 describes the different hypotheses addressed in the analyses; Section 4 describes the data; Section 5 explains the methodology applied in Section 6; Section 6 includes non-parametric analyses of the distribution of income and of satisfaction within couples and parametric analyses of the relationship between income shares and financial satisfaction, and, finally, it is investigated if there is any indication of an actual sharing of resources in the family, controlling for economies of scale by formatting a marriage/cohabitation; Section 7 gives the conclusion.

There is increasing literature on the relationship between the distribution of income between spouses and satisfaction. However, only a few studies have investigated the functional form of this relationship not to mention variations between different welfare state regimes. The fact that there is disparity in income shares among spouses, with the Scandinavian countries being the most equalitarian followed by the mid-European countries, and the southern European as the least equalitarian, might impact the reported wellbeing – financial satisfaction – among European spouses. The hypothesis is, therefore, that the more the wife earns relative to the husband, the more satisfied the wife becomes and the less the husband becomes. However, in the more advanced countries some degree of equal distribution could yield both partners the same satisfaction, although this share might be lower for the wife and higher for the husband than the actual income share in the household. The analyses showed a negative and statistically significant relationship for men in Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg suggesting that their financial satisfaction decreases with the proportion of income earned by the women controlling, among others things, for the total amount of income in the family. On the other side, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek men's satisfaction increase the more the wife contributes to the family income. For women in Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece their satisfaction increase significantly the more they contribute to the family income, while French women decrease their satisfaction. The interpretation given was that for husbands in the Scandinavian and continental regimes their wife's contribution to family income is more of a “threat” to there position and/or their consumption than for husbands in the Liberal and southern European regimes, while most wives in Europe see their financial contribution to the family as a bargaining and/or consumption improving instrument. Moreover, we found that Danish men and women experience a significant inverse U-shaped relationship between the wife's share of the personal income of the family and their individual satisfaction with the financial situation. Likewise do Irish, Belgium, Dutch, Luxembourg, Italian and Spanish women, whereas French and Portuguese women experience a U-shaped relationship between their share of the personal income and their individual financial satisfaction, not all the relationships are statistically significant, and the U-shapes less pronounced than for Danish women and men. For French and Portuguese men the relationship is U-shaped, while Spanish men have a significant and inverse relationship, implying that some income equality is found acceptable. This indicates that Scandinavian spouses may agree upon the advantage of dual earnings, while French and Portuguese husbands and wives are more in favour of a traditional breadwinner model with either the one or the other as the main income earner. For the remaining countries only women appreciate a more or less equal distribution of income in the family, whereas men's preferences are blurred and in most cases not significant at all. The calculated income share maximising financial satisfaction was above the actual share for most women, while it was below for most men. Here, Scandinavian (Danish) women are closer to their optimal income share than continental European women (Luxembourg), i.e. Belgium women are as close as Danish women, who are again closer to achieving their optimal income than are women within the liberal regime (Ireland) and in the southern European regime (Italy and Spain). For men in Scandinavia the actual income regime is found close to their optimal one, while in Luxembourg and especially in Italy and Spain men desire a more equal share than actually achieved. The findings show that the development towards more income equality between men and women in most European – and non-European – countries is in accordance with women's preferences for more/higher incomes, while men seem to be more resistant against income equality within the family. As expected, women in the southern European countries followed by women in the continental and liberal regimes are not as close to experiencing the same income as men relative to women in the Scandinavian countries. An indication of sharing of income within the family is found in the Netherlands, where women and men achieve lower financial satisfaction with more personal income than their single brothers and sisters. In Italian cohabiting/married men and corresponding Portuguese women also gain more from higher income than their single sisters, whereas in Denmark, Spain and Greece married/cohabiting women and in France and Spain married/cohabiting men do gain more from an extra Euro than their single sisters and brothers. An explanation given is that Dutch and Portuguese wives and Italian men are sharing more of their income with their partner, than do Danish, Spanish and Greek wives and French and Spanish husbands, when earning an extra income.