My Wealth, (Y)Our Life Satisfaction? Sole and Joint Wealth Ownership and Life Satisfaction in Marriage

Nicole Kapelle (), Theresa Nutz, Daria Tisch, Manuel Schechtl, Philipp M. Lersch and Emanuela Struffolino
Additional contact information
Nicole Kapelle: University of Oxford
Theresa Nutz: GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
Daria Tisch: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Manuel Schechtl: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin
Philipp M. Lersch: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin
Emanuela Struffolino: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin

European Journal of Population, 2022, vol. 38, issue 4, No 6, 834 pages

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the money-subjective well-being nexus by studying the link between changes in jointly and solely (i.e. respondents’ own and their partner’s own) held gross wealth and changes in married individuals’ subjective well-being. Joint assets reflect norms of sharing responsibilities and resources. Solely held assets, in contrast, offer individual economic independence. Using wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), we estimate individual fixed effects regressions. Although coefficients for all three wealth measures are positive, our results highlight that only increases in jointly held wealth are associated with statistically significant increases in spouses’ life satisfaction in Germany. Despite expectations about a stronger relevance of joint wealth for men compared to women in line with men’s role as a financial provider for the family, we do not find substantial gender differences in the positive association between increases in joint wealth and life satisfaction. In light of the individualisation of marriages, our results highlight that the personal benefits associated with marital sharing of wealth seem to trump those of economic independence and financial autonomy.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Wealth; Marriage; Individualisation; Family economics; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10680-022-09630-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:38:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10680-022-09630-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10680

DOI: 10.1007/s10680-022-09630-7

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Population is currently edited by Helga A.G. de Valk

More articles in European Journal of Population from Springer, European Association for Population Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().