How husbands and wives vote

• I pair economic models of voting behavior with theories of household behavior.
• Theory predicts that political preferences are influenced by earnings.
• The impact of earnings vary with the individual's share of household income.
• Empirically, I find that men vote more according to own earnings than women.
• If she earns more or works fulltime, she votes according to own earnings.

This article uses economic theories of voting behavior and household decision making to analyze the role of own and spouse earnings in determining political voting behavior. The main predictions from these models is that earnings is one of the factors that has an impact on political preferences and in households who share resources, voting behavior will be influenced more by the most representative labor income in the family. I investigate empirically the importance of individual vs household income, and find that the importance of individual income on voting behavior is contingent on employment. On average women earn less than their husband and vote according to their husbands income. If the wife is the maximum earner of the household or works fulltime, she votes more according to her own earnings.