Do proportional household budgets just perpetruate sexism?

To play the devils advocate - doesn't a completely shared income also perpetuate sexism as it removes incentive for the woman to try and get a better paid job (or WOH altogether)?

Yes, I think it is 4 in 5 who choose to live with a man earn less than he does. Many of them prefer to marry up , someone a bit better educated and older,. Very few women will actively seek someone who is less bright, worse educated and earns half what they do although I would hope this eventually could become a gender neutral issue. A lot of men do marry women who earn half (and let's not forget women earn more than men in the UK up to age 26 when many of these unions are made).

"I do think those who say it depends on your attitude to money are right. If you both are pretty good savers as we were then everything joint is fine and it worked well for us. If one of you runs through money like water and the other is very careful it could be a recipe for disaster."

That's a key point. Keeping a private account plus the joint can stop a lot of resentment.

Lots of women on this thread earn more than their other half which is great and a growing trend.

I do think those who say it depends on your attitude to money are right. If you both are pretty good savers as we were then everything joint is fine and it worked well for us. If one of you runs through money like water and the other is very careful it could be a recipe for disaster.

Plenty of women choose to live without men of course and many are lesbians.

In a sense the entire premise of the thread is sexist because it assumes women will choose to live with men which many don't.

LOL.. in view of the continuing gender pay gap (for whatever reasons that may be) maybe we should charge our DHs a "willy tax"!

I think the idea that the only women who prefer a shared approach are unwaged, or low waged is a bit sweeping.

When we met, both me and my DH earned similar incomes. He is now paid much more, whilst I am PT. However, even my PT wage is substantially far above the national average.

Like Xenia (I never thought I would type these words) joint money is not much of an issue, as me & DH have the same spending priorities. It would be different if we had different views on spending / saving.

Actually, yes, I think to answer OP's question, it does perpetuate sexism. Because currently, men do still tend to earn more than women. And the result is that men have more financial power in the relationship. If joint expenses cover the basics, the one who has greater spending power is likely to do things like "treat" the other one - to a night out, a shopping trip, a weekend away. Simply because he has more money.

I know this because before DH and I were married, this is how we worked things. At his insistence. Becuase I earned significantly more money. But the result was that at birthdays I did go out and spend more on him, because I could. And I did "treat" him regularly and that did not make our relationship feel equal. And when it's the man who earns more, I think it just reinforces stereotypes of the man being in control of the money.

DH gets very frustrated as he is often out with male friends on weekends, and they'll make comments like, "Oh, DW is out with my credit card. Guffaw guffaw" and it annoys him because he can't understand how these men are a) oblivious to the fact that he earns less than me so it's not a universal man thing and b) married to women who think its okay to have to get permission to go shopping with the man's credit card.

One final point, in most cases, I have no doubt that neither the man nor the women see it as a sexism issue. But sadly, that doesn't change the subtle reinforcement that is going on.

We earned the same for quite a while. Ultimately I earned 10x what he did. On the divorce he got more than half. It depends on the couple how things are divided but we both had the same work ethic, neither spent much and a similar attitude to money and never argued over it so everything in joint names worked fine for us.

I think how the money and assets are divided up in a relationship gave a good indicator of how the value that each places on the other's contribution and on themselves and that this is true irrespective of whether both, one or neither person is working. If a woman agrees to a system that is unfair on her then I don't think it perpetrates sexism per say, I just think that she either doesn't sufficiently value herself or her contribution or hasn't thought through a worse case scenario.

My mother agreed to a system that was unfair, she believed my dad when he made out that he knew more about finances, mortgages etc than she did. This was in an age where it was hard to educate oneself about these things as no internet etc. When it went horribly wrong the impact on her and us children were devasting. My brothers and (in particular) sisters and I have learned some hard lessons from this which I am sure we will pass on to our children (especially girls).

I agree with the poster that said that any system is fair and reasonable if the people are fair and reaasonable.

This is a touchy subject for me, as I earn more than my OH and have a vastly expensive hobby (horses) so lots of my cash goes on that. I would not want him to know how much money I waste on my horse habit, so I don't want my salary going into a joint pot. Yes, I am hugely selfish, but for me the advantage of working to earn money is that I get to spend it how I want.

This means I am also happy for my husband to spend what he wants, when he wants, so we live in a relaxed house and don't argue about money.

Bills/mortgage etc are all covered by DD, so no need for squabbles over that and we are responsibe for our own cars etc.

I hate these sort of feminism posts which always seem to end up wanting to financially value 'women's work'. I just can't relate, at all, I hate the thought of 'women's work'. If I want money, I go and earn it.

My parents pay all their income into a joint account then allocate themselves equal "spending money" out of that. What's left in the joint account covers all joint expenses including holidays, cars etc, their spends are for their own leisure activities - buying books or craft supplies for example. I think it's a good way of doing it, they've gone through stages of both working, to Mum SAH with us and doing voluntary stuff too, to a period of unemployment and now both working again. I think their arrangement demonstrates that all their resources are shared iyswim, no matter who brought what in or did what unpaid work, they are equals. I'd probably want to use a similar system if I ever lived as part of a couple again.

I think the system the OP refers to though, where both contribute an equal amount regardless of income is unfair on the lower earner though. Both should be left with the same amount of spending money imo.

DH and I share all our money. He earns 3x what I do. We have never thought about doing it any other way. We have separate savings accounts, mainly because he is a 40% tax payer and I'm not. The money in them isn't for the person named on the account's personal use though. We have spent the money in my savings account getting us through DH going freelance and not being paid for 2 months. I'm not bothered, that sort of situation is what its there for.

I do think separate money perpetuates women being in a worse position than men as they are generally the lower earner. This is exacerbated when the man expects all the things for the DCs to come out of the woman's money, not his. It can also be about power and control, where a man is able to go off and do whatever he wants as he can afford to do so, whereas the woman can't.

We don't have that with shared money. We both spend what we feel we need to on whatever we feel we need to, discussing large purchases with the other one before buying.

at least you're consistently erroneous in harrumphing
why did you introduce talk of quota?I didn't mention quotas
and yes raising children isn't automatically female domain
just as family finances isn't automatically male domain

scottishmummy, I made no comment on my personal views on the quota system idea. And if you meant perpetrates rather than perpetuates, that's up to you.

You seem to have a view that the problem is that women give up work to have children. My alternative argument would be that the problem is that men don't.

a lot of this also depends on how tight money is.
i know this might be sickening for some people but we are lucky enough to be in a situation where i choose to earn less in order to work in a field that i believe in (hippy that i am) and i am happy to buy less 'stuff'.. DH works in a higher paid field and also has a more expensive hobby.
obviously we have the same home, and holidays and meals out etc (so basically the same standard of living) the difference is he owns a bunch of his hobby equipment and i don't have any equivalent (through choice, i hate shopping).

lol,what a bizarre summation trib
erroneous and harrumphing
with spelling pedantry
nice

quotas?nope didnt go there
you did though

We have had a joint account since early twenties. I earn 3-4 times what he earns, but I couldn't do it without him, so its not just mine.

Behind every most high earning woman, is either herself, or a partner who isn't a twat. or maybe a combination.

There are other systems that aren't twatty but if one of you spends more money on yourself than your partner can spend on theirself, that's a sign your a twat.

I read somewhere seperate monies is norm for couples
I suppose it's preference
but certainly I've never wanted or sought shared monies in our relationship

retreating to stereotypical gender roles perpetrates sexism

I think the OP meant perpetuate, scottishmummy. But in any case, what you seem to be suggesting is a stay-at-home version of the quota idea for board members, where a certain percentage would be required to be women. Quite how society would enforce a certain percentage of all stay-at-home parents being men, in order to challenge gender assumptions, I'm not sure . I do know that in Sweden a few years back it was mandated that each parent had to take at least 3 months of the parental leave period in a bid to tackle the idea that combining work and childcare was solely a female issue.

We have always had a joint account even when I was not earning any money into which all money is paid I manage the money and we have always had the same "spends" in the budget I do. To us its just a pot of money that belongs to both of us equally.

arrrggghhhhhh your not you're

We actually have a communal pot, philosophically speaking. We have independent current accounts, and a joint one for bills and things. We buy what we feel we need up to the limit of the money coming in.

I am currently Head of Procurement and DH is Head of Finance, but mainly because I am better at planning expenditure and sniffing out deals, while he is a bit better on Excel.

hmm.... tricky question... i would say that having separate 'spending' money is becoming more popular but i would also say that in the past the man had money to spend and the woman if lower paid generally just didn't have any disposable income or any income she could call her own outside of 'treats' that her husband 'gave' her.

we have private 'spends' because it's how we budget - we're lucky enough to have money for leisure and hobbies so we put our necessary money into one account and savings into another and keep our 'spends' for our own use separate so we have no danger of ever going into the 'necessary' money or family savings.

i think you're issue is not really about this concept, but about the exact proportioning of it? is that right? and it's only an issue IF the woman has taken a lower income due to family/childcare role? (we're not in that situation).