Money management over the course of marriage: Parenthood, employment and household financial organization in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, differentiated gender expectations are strongly emphasized and Japanese wives shoulder the majority of the domestic work. Although previous research has examined the gendered division of paid and unpaid work in Japan, much less attention has been paid to household money management patterns among Japanese couples. Traditionally, Japanese women do the household financial organization, regardless of their employment status. Husbands transfer all of their income and other earnings to their wives and receive a monthly allowance as pocket money. We use data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC), 1994–2019 waves, to construct fixed-effect models to investigate how parenthood, wife’s employment and husband’s relative income are associated with different money management systems in Japan. Our findings show that parenthood is positively associated with female money management systems, whereas in dual-earner couples, women are less likely to manage household money. The results suggest that female money management in Japan is positioned as part of the package of wife / mother / homemaker roles and is a “female” task rather than “male”. The results also show that the applicability of Western money management typologies and theoretical frameworks is limited for the Japanese context.