Who is in Charge of Family Finances in the Russian Two-earner Households?

Journal of Family Issues. 2015.

Ibragimova D., Guseva A.

Using a recent representative survey and supplemental interviews, we  investigate household money management and domestic power dynamics  in contemporary Russian two-partner families. During the Soviet period, it  was women who typically managed household money. Today, while 45.6%  of contemporary Russian two-partner households pool money and manage  it jointly, and in about a quarter of families women are in charge, families  with men in control of domestic money are on the rise among more affluent  spouses who have been married for less than 20 years. While previous work  finds evidence for the feminization of poverty in the postcommunist region,  we underscore the otherwise hidden aspects of inequality—gendered  access to household money among the relative “winners” of the transition:  Younger and more affluent families. We place these changes in the context  of neoliberal market reforms, including labor market and welfare policy  changes and the rise of neoconservative gender ideology.

Keywords: деньги, власть, домохозяйства, социология финансового поведения, гендер, gender, power, household, sociology of financial behavior, money management, two-earner household

Publication based on the results of: Monitoring of financial behavior of households: economic sociology approach (2013)