Shared or separate? Money management and changing norms of gender equality among Norwegian couples

Over the last generation the male breadwinner/housewife family has gradually become outdated as the dominant normative model for family households. The new ideal has become the adult worker family model, where gender equality defined as economic independence and sharing of household work and childcare between spouses/partners is the norm. The Nordic countries are the frontrunners of this development, and the Nordic welfare model is assumed to be well adapted to this new ideal. However, this ideal does not hold clear norms of how money should be managed and shared in family households, and Nordic families have to establish their own systems. Norwegian survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 1994 and 2002 are used to analyse patterns of money management in family households. Our study indicates that, even if sharing of economic resources and responsibility remains the most common pattern, a greater number of families are choosing separate and independent systems of financial allocation. This increase in divided systems of money management may lead to new gender inequalities because of the lack of recognition of the value of domestic labour and family care as part of the common provision.