Managing money in new heterosexual forms of intimate relationships

Drawing on British data from the 1994 and 2002 International Social Survey Programme modules on “Family and Changing Gender Roles,” this paper attempts to analyse the ways in which different subcategories of cohabiting couples organise money and to compare them with their married counterparts in the same age range and family situations. The results indicate that while young cohabiting parents tend to see their relationships as similar or equivalent to marriage and organise money in very similar ways to married parents, young childless and older post-marital cohabiting couples are overwhelmingly likely to keep money partly or completely separate, especially when one partner earns more than the other.