Researching Within-Household Distribution: Overview, Developments, Debates, and Methodological Challenges

Research into intrahousehold finances challenges key assumptions about the as a unitary whole, investigates the extent of sharing within it, examines mechanisms of control and allocation of resources, and reveals the personalized nature of different monies. This article presents an overview of research on within-household distribution (understood as both outcome and process). It discusses major questions addressed, including inequalities between (gendered) individuals and the potential reasons for these. It outlines significant developments and debates, within qualitative research in particular, in relation to the unit of analysis (traditionally, the married couple), the texture and of financial dealings within couples, and the tensions between autonomy and equal sharing as values. It then discusses several key methodological challenges, and concludes by highlighting some policy implications of central research messages. Throughout, it draws on and discusses the other articles in this special section, which explore key methodological issues in researching within-household distribution.Key Words: decision making, equality, fairness, resource management, gender.Research on the material aspects of life is not easy because so much economic behaviour takes place (literally) behind closed doors. (Burgoyne, Clarke, Reibstein, & Edmunds, 2006, p. 619)As this quotation suggests, in relation to financial dealings within the the has often been seen as a ' 'black box' ' that it is not possible to investigate (Pahl, 1989, p. 4). More substantively, such investigation could be seen as unnecessary interference, because the is in any case a glued-together unit whose interests are as one (Sen, 1997, p. 371). Two further, more specific, assumptions tend to follow. First, members are assumed to benefit equally, or at least proportionally to their needs, from resources. Second, incomes are put together all in one pot (Sung & Bennett, 2007) for distribution, with no differentiation, and with any mechanisms of control or decision making remaining unexamined. These assumptions are applied in particular to coresident members-the family household (Haddad, Hoddinott, & Alderman, 1997). A third, additional assumption relates to the nature of money, which may be viewed as an essentially neutral, and endlessly fungible, means of exchange within the as well as outside.An alternative body of thought on within-household distribution, however, has interrogated each of these three assumptions and found them wanting. First, while acknowledging that people can derive various benefits from living together (Himmelweit & Santos, 2009), it is argued that, because of the unequal positions of individuals in households, some sharing of Department of Social Policy and Intervention, 32Wellington Square, Oxford 0X1 2ER, England(ifan.bennett@spi.ox.ac.uk).resources is often necessary-but may not itself be equal. Second, it is asserted that an allocation method must intervene between receipt of resources and their consumption, and that this should be scrutinized. Last, in relation to the nature of money, instead of this being neutral, researchers argue that it has meaning in varying contexts (Nyman, 2003; Singh, 1997; Zelizer, 1994). As Robeyns (2003) argued, for example, even if income were shared completely, it is problematic to assume that it does not matter in a well-being assessment whether a person has earned this money herself, or obtained it from her partner (p. 65). Money is thus a social and ideological, not just an economic, medium of exchange (Pahl, 1989). Personalized monies in particular, such as those from a spouse, can carry expectations about future behavior (Hallerod, Diaz, & Stocks, 2007, pp. 144 - 147) and be laden with meaning (Nyman, Reinikainen, & Stocks, 2013, this issue); money thus forms an integral part of the emotional economy of life (Goode, 2010). …