Yours, Mine, and Ours: Feminism and Couple Finance
Charlie Loungarikis, Celsey Selland, & David B. Allsop
October 9, 2026
This blog is a summary of our published article:
LeBaron, A. B., Holmes, E. K., Yorgason, J. B., Hill, E. J., & Allsop, D. B. (2018). Feminism and Couple Finance: Power as a Mediator Between Financial Processes and Relationship Outcomes. Sex Roles, 81(3-4), 140–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0986-5
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Finance can be a cause of tension in relationships. Money issues are credited as one of the most common causes of divorce with evidence suggesting that it plays a role in up to 40% of divorces [1]. This notable trend has brought about an interest in researching couples under financial stress, but there can be many reasons for financial disagreement rather than specifically a lack of money. Feminism stresses equality between genders and calls for both partners in a mixed-gender relationship to have equal responsibility. Few studies look at couple’s finance through a feminist lens.
What did we want to know?
The goal of this study was to see how equal involvement in finances enhances couples’ relationships. The study viewed how multiple elements of feminism impacted romantic relationships. Feminism concerns itself with power, privilege, and inequality between genders, so it is a valuable lens within couples’ finances. This study considers who earns money in the relationship, who is able to access the money, how the money is managed, where disagreements in money arise, and how these agreements or conflicts in finance impact the relationship.
What did we do?
This study took a sample of 327 couples from the Flourishing Families Project. Most were recruited using a purchased national telephone survey database. These families were randomly selected from the database. Scales from the Flourishing Families Project were implemented in order to measure the financial process, relational power, and relational outcomes within the families.
Participants were asked how much they made independently from their partner, if they shared a bank account with their partner, how often they worked together when they experienced financial troubles, and how often they experienced financial troubles. This addresses who brings in money, who has access to the money, who manages money, and conflicts around money. Participants were asked how much they felt their voice mattered to their partner to determine who had power in the relationship. Questions about relationship strength, cohesiveness, and satisfaction were asked to determine relationship quality. To assess how stable the relationships were, participants were asked how often they have been romantically separated in the past and how confident they felt in their relationship currently. All of these questions were presented through surveys where participants ranked how they felt about the questions on number scales, indicating how much they agreed or disagreed.
What did we find?
The results of this study suggest that couples who manage their finances together and had joint bank accounts were more satisfied within their relationship and experienced less conflict.
What does this mean?
These results suggest that couples may be more satisfied within their relationships if they feel that they have equal amounts of power and say over how money is used. It is empowering for both partners to have equal participation with finances and having joint bank accounts can help minimize conflict. This implies that clinicians may want to encourage couples to have joint bank accounts to empower both partners in the relationship.
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References:
[1] Why People Divorce and What are the Reasons for Divorce? (2025). Institutedfa.com. https://institutedfa.com/leading-causes-divorce/
