Accumulation of Personal Wealth in Couples: Individual Resources and Gender Inequalities in Intimate Relationships

这个项目考察了异性恋夫妇中的个人财富。财富是一种经济资源，它提供了许多超越收入的优势。特别是，个人财富，需要与家庭财富区分开来，对于提供生命过程中的经济保障越来越重要。这是亲密关系不稳定和福利国家重组的结果。之前的研究已经证实，在夫妻关系中，女性拥有的个人财富通常较少。然而，对个人财富积累背后的过程进行彻底的检查，这些过程在夫妻之间造成了性别不平等。为了填补这一空白，提议的项目回答了以下首要研究问题：是什么塑造了夫妻个人财富的积累和不平等？通过回答这个问题，该项目的首要目标是了解夫妻关系如何影响男女个人财富积累。其次，它旨在提高人们对夫妻之间经济不平等随着时间的推移而产生的认识。第三，它旨在确定缓和夫妻内部财富积累的环境条件。该项目建立在家庭内部资源分配理论与生命历程观点相结合的基础上。主要的工作假设是，众所周知的家庭积累过程对男女伴侣的个人财富产生了性别影响，但迄今为止人们对这一影响知之甚少。还有一种假设是，这些过程因国家而异，例如由于不同的税收制度。为了验证这一点，我们从多个角度考察了个人财富的积累，并观察了不同国家夫妇中的个人。首先，使用了来自澳大利亚、德国、英国和美国的定量、二手和纵向调查数据。使用生长和变化的经验模型和捕捉传记复杂性的模型对数据进行比较分析。其次，在所有四个国家的案例中，对这些分析进行了对夫妻个人财富主观态度的析因调查实验的修正。用多层模型对这些原始数据进行了分析。从两个分析部分的结果整合允许全面的答案，以压倒一切的研究问题。因此，这个及时和相关的项目有助于更好地了解由于财富差距导致的男女生活机会不平等。

This project examines personal wealth of individuals within heterosexual couples. Wealth is an economic resource that provides many advantages that go beyond income. Particularly, personal wealth, which needs to be distinguished from household wealth, is increasingly important to provide economic 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 are missing, however. To fill this gap the proposed project answers the following overarching research question: What shapes the accumulation of and inequalities in personal wealth in couples? By answering this question, the project's first aim is to understand how being in a couple affects personal wealth accumulation for women and men. Second, it aims to improve on 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 project builds on theories of the intra-household distribution of resources in combination with a life course perspective. The main working hypothesis is that well-known processes of accumulation at the household-level have gendered, and so far little understood, effects for 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, the UK and US 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 factorial survey experiments on the subjective attitudes towards personal wealth in couples in all four country cases. These primary data are analysed with multilevel models. The integration of results from both analytical parts allows for comprehensive answers to the overarching research question. Thereby, this timely and relevant project contributes to a better understanding of women's and men's unequal life chances due to wealth disparities.