Summary
Contents
The ‘triple overlap’ refers to the link between gender stratification, the household and economic variables. In this volume, leading sociologists examine this overlap as a totality, providing theoretical concepts and new research on how the triple overlap works, both inside the family and within the broader context of society. Their competing conceptions of the interrelationship of gender, family and economy are bolstered by empirical papers which raise questions of culture, class and race within the contexts of both the developed and developing worlds. Six of the articles in this volume were previously published as a Special Issue of Journal of Family Issues.
The Common Pot or Separate Purses? A Transaction Cost Interpretation
The Common Pot or Separate Purses? A Transaction Cost Interpretation
In some families, economic arrangements are characterized by the common pot. Members pool their resources into a joint fund that is then allocated to the consumption of various parties. In other families, financial management is characterized by separate purses. Individual family members hold at least some money and/or economic resources back. At the extreme, husbands, wives, and perhaps grown children share nothing, retaining complete ownership and control over their own income and assets.
One system recognizes individual property rights. The other merges individual economic interests into those of the collectivity. Separate purses assume that family members can disentangle their economic fates and fortunes. The common pot assumes ...
