Accumulation of Personal Wealth in Couples: Individual Resources and Gender Inequalities in Intimate Relationships
Final Report Abstract
This Emmy Noether group examined the personal wealth of individuals within different-sex couples. Wealth is an economic resource that provides many advantages that go beyond income. Particularly, personal wealth, which must be distinguished from household wealth, is increasingly important to provide financial security over the life course. This is a consequence of less stable intimate relationships and restructuring welfare states. Previous research has established that women mostly own less personal wealth in couples. Thorough examinations of the processes underlying personal wealth accumulation that create gender inequalities within couples were missing, however. To fill this gap, the Emmy Noether group set out to answer the following overarching research question: What shapes the accumulation of and inequalities in personal wealth in couples? By answering this question, the group's first aim is to understand how being in a couple affects personal wealth accumulation for women and men. Second, it aims to improve the knowledge about the generation of economic inequalities within couples over time. Third, it aims to identify contextual conditions that moderate the within-couple accumulation of wealth. The group builds on theories of the intra-household distribution of resources in combination with a life course perspective. The central working hypothesis is that well-known processes of accumulation at the householdlevel have gendered, and so far little understood, effects on personal wealth of partnered women and men. It is also hypothesised that these processes differ across countries, e.g., due to divergent tax systems. To test this, the accumulation of personal wealth is examined from multiple perspectives and by observing individuals within couples over time and in diverse countries. First, quantitative, secondary, and longitudinal survey data from Australia, Germany, Britain, and the United States are used. The data are comparatively analysed using empirical models of growth and change and models that capture biographical complexities. Second, these analyses are amended with survey experiments on the subjective attitudes towards personal wealth in couples across country cases. Integrating results from both analytical parts allows for comprehensive answers to the overarching research question. This project contributes to a better understanding of women's and men's unequal life chances due to wealth disparities.
Publications
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Planning Until Death Do Us Part: Partnership Status and Financial Planning Horizon. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(2), 409-425.
Fulda, Barbara E. & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Distributive Justice in Marriage: Experimental Evidence on Beliefs about Fair Savings Arrangements. Journal of Marriage and Family, 83(2), 516-533.
Tisch, Daria & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Gender and Changes in Household Wealth after the Dissolution of Marriage and Cohabitation in Germany. Journal of Marriage and Family, 83(1), 228-242.
Boertien, Diederik & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Marital Dissolution and Personal Wealth: Examining Gendered Trends across the Dissolution Process. Journal of Marriage and Family, 83(1), 243-259.
Kapelle, Nicole & Baxter, Janeen
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My Gain or Your Loss? Changes in within-Couple Relative Wealth and Partners’ Life Satisfaction. European Sociological Review, 37(2), 271-286.
Tisch, Daria
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The Accumulation of Wealth in Marriage: Over-Time Change and Within-Couple Inequalities. European Sociological Review, 36(4), 580-593.
Kapelle, Nicole & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Dyadic employment biographies and within‐couple wealth inequality in Britain and Western Germany. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84(2), 552-569.
Nutz, Theresa & Gritti, Davide
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Gendered employment trajectories and individual wealth at older ages in Eastern and Western Germany. Advances in Life Course Research, 47, 100374.
Nutz, Theresa & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age. European Journal of Population, 38(1), 59-92.
Kapelle, Nicole & Vidal, Sergi
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In sole or joint names? The role of employment and marriage biographies for married women’s asset ownership in later life. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 79, 100690.
Nutz, Theresa
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My Wealth, (Y)Our Life Satisfaction? Sole and Joint Wealth Ownership and Life Satisfaction in Marriage. European Journal of Population, 38(4), 811-834.
Kapelle, Nicole; Nutz, Theresa; Tisch, Daria; Schechtl, Manuel; Lersch, Philipp M. & Struffolino, Emanuela
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Time cannot heal all wounds: Wealth trajectories of divorcees and the married. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84(2), 592-611.
Kapelle, Nicole
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Unequal but just? Experimental evidence on (gendered) distributive justice principles in parental financial gifts. Socio-Economic Review, 21(3), 1369-1390.
Tisch, Daria & Gutfleisch, Tamara
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Wealth in Couples: Introduction to the Special Issue. European Journal of Population, 38(4), 623-641.
Lersch, Philipp M.; Struffolino, Emanuela & Vitali, Agnese
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Who Opts Out? The Customisation of Marriage in the German Matrimonial Property Regime. European Journal of Population, 38(3), 353-375.
Nutz, Theresa; Nelles, Anika & Lersch, Philipp M.
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Assortative Mating and Wealth Inequalities Between and Within Households. Social Forces, 102(2), 454-474.
Lersch, Philipp M & Schunck, Reinhard
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Class Origin, Intergenerational Transfers, and the Gender Wealth Gap.
Trinh, Nhat An
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Dynamics of Wealth Homogamy in Couples.
Trinh, Nhat An; Lersch, Philipp M. & Schunck, Reinhard
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Tax principles, policy feedback and self-interest: cross-national experimental evidence on wealth tax preferences. Socio-Economic Review, 22(1), 279-300.
Schechtl, Manuel & Tisch, Daria
