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The aim is to show how digital financial services are used to perpetrate digitally facilitated economic abuse. The article is based on interviews with women in Sweden who are survivors of intimate partner violence and economic abuse.The use of digital financial services is rapidly expanding and in Sweden they are used by the majority of the population. They are available on smart devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops and have become a part of everyday life. Research on technology facilitated abuse and research on economic abuse have not addressed the risks for economic abuse via digital financial services. To bridge this gap, we suggest a merging of these fields to focus on what we call digitally facilitated economic abuse. 

Findings show that digital financial services constitute risks for economic abuse and facilitate abusive behaviours. Smart devices serve as digital bank books, wallets and identity cards, all rolled into one neat little package, opening up for new methods for economic abuse. Abusers use digital financial services to limit and restrict the woman’s access to money, to monitor and control her use of money by breaching her financial privacy, to economically exploit her and to put her in debt. 

Användning av e-legitimation förenklar många vardagliga uppgifter. Vid utformningen har användarvänlighet prioriterats före skydd mot obehörig användning och det skydd som finns tar sikte på bedrägerier utförda av en utomstående. Skydd mot bedrägliga beteenden inom familjen har inte beaktats. I denna artikel vill vi uppmärksamma hur obehörigt brukande av en e-legitimation kan användas som verktyg för ekonomiskt våld.

This chapter provides an overview of research on money in couples. The focus is on how couples organise and share money, finances and consumption and the consequences of different ways of handling money. Money in couples is complex and 'Janus-faced' as it possesses two interrelated but different sides. It is connected to practical aspects associated with everyday finances, but also with gendered expectations and norms, exercising of power and conflicts of interest. Money also has symbolic meaning and is involved in constructing couplehood. The ways money is conceptualised, handled, shared, merged or held separate all matter for how love and commitment in a couple are expressed and strengthened (or undermined), as well as for how gender equality and fairness are manifested and perceived.

Sweden is considered as one of the most gender equal countries in the world and most Swedes claim to embrace gender equality. Yet, the majority of couples still organize their family lives according to traditional gendered patterns. This article aims to investigate how gender plays a role for how couples in Sweden talk about, articulate and frame their arguments regarding their division of housework. We identify three practices that act to support and reproduce a traditional gender order. These practices are: constructions of (un)suitability, placement of responsibility and comparison. Through these practices the couples' uneven division of housework is made into something other than a question of gender (in)equality, and change of the present order is made into a non-issue. We argue that the tension between striving for gender equality on the one hand and doing gender on the other, characterizes everyday interaction in modem couples. Recognizing this complexity is important for understanding the slow changes in gendered and gendering patterns and for the slow movement towards greater gender equality. The analysis brings the complex, interwoven and contradictory processes of doing gender to the fore.

This article describes Swedish women’s experiences of life as single. Data showed that singlehood was not actively chosen but rather a situation that participants ended up in due to separation from a partner. However, once single, participants chose to remain single. The lack of gender equality in traditional cohabiting couplehood made participants wary about entering a new cohabiting couple relationship. Living apart together (LAT) relationships were identified  as a possible way to combine gender-equal intimacy with personal freedom and independence. Data suggested that the increased number of single women may not necessarily point to an increased desirability of singleness per se, nor to a rejection of coupled intimacy. Singlehood was rather a rejection of the limitations associated with cohabiting couplehood. The article highlights the importance of the Swedish welfare state for making it possible for women toremain single, even those with dependent children.

This report presents some reflections on and experiences from a cross-national qualitative research project about within-household finances conducted by sociologists from Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The authors focus first on the challenges of making qualitative cross-national comparisons and argue for the importance of establishing a common understanding of methodological and theoretical aspects. They then go on to consider the relevance of political cultural context for understanding within-household distribution of resources. They suggest that meanings of money are influenced by understandings of gender, which in turn influence and are influenced by welfare regimes. They then present a few outcomes from a cross-national analysis of results from Spain, Sweden, and the United States. They conclude the article by suggesting that comparisons on the level of results rather than on the level of primary data is a viable option for qualitative cross-national analysis.

Research suggests that couples categorized as practicing independent management (IM) have a high level of independence and separateness regarding financial matters. However, this interview study showed that the boundaries between “yours” and “mine” regarding money, finances and consumption are blurred in couples categorized as IM. The blurring of boundaries reflected participants’ understandings of what it means to be in a committed couple relationship and the difficulties associated with having joint expenses and consumption while lacking a "common purse." The study indicated that couples might be less individualistic and private than the label IM suggests and that the practices of those categorized as using IM are varied and complex.

That couples negotiate has been a central assumption in research on couples and families during the last few decades. In this article we take a closer look at the basic assumptions on which the understanding of negotiation rests and the way the concept of negotiation has been applied. First, we argue that negotiation is rare in couples’ everyday lives and that much of what has been discussed in terms of negotiation can be understood in terms of ‘doing gender’ and ‘doing couple’ within the context of couples’ everyday lives. We suggest that there exists little need and space for negotiation in couples’ everyday lives. Second, we unpack the concept of negotiation and find that it is characterized by ambiguity and a lack of clarity. Finally, we conclude with a suggestion for a more clear definition in order to differentiate negotiation from other forms of interaction that takes place within couples.

Freed from the bonds of traditional gendered norms, responsibilities and obligations, it has been argued that negotiation is a key concept for understanding how modern couples organize their common life together. Interviews with Swedish couples cause us to question this assumption. In this article we argue that negotiations are relatively unusual in couple relationships. We found that couples seldom experience the reason, room space or need to negotiate. This can in part be understood from the perspective of seeing everyday life as a matter of practical coordination, i.e. as something we strive to master rather than something we try to change or critically reflect upon. We found that routines and rituals were a guiding force in how couples organize their everyday lives. “Doing gender”, “doing couple”, external circumstances and agreement were all central aspects in making the everyday lives of the couples we interviewed work.