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This article analyses how Swedish couples perceive the sharing of money and consumption between themselves and their partner. Interviews were conducted with ten Swedish married couples. Each spouse was interviewed separately about their incomes, financial organization, patterns of consumption, views about money and decision-making. Regardless of whether they pooled their incomes or kept money separately, all were in agreement about the importance of equal sharing and access to money and consumption. Despite stated goals of gender equality, however, consumption was not perceived as being shared equally. Two factors central to understanding this were the ways that daily finances were managed and the fact that women had responsibility for the daily finances of the family. Another important aspect was the ways that items of consumption were defined. Food and children's clothes were areas that were in a 'grey zone' regarding which money was used to pay for them, and they often fell to the woman. This practical responsibility and associated awareness of the family economy serve as obstacles to women's sense of entitlement and access to money for personal discretionary spending, a problem not experienced by men.

The main aim of this study is to analyse how time use, individual resources, distributive justice and gender ideology influence perceptions of fairness concerning housework and gender equality. The analyses are based on survey data as well as on an interview study, both including Swedish couples. The quantitative results show that it is only factors connected to time use (division of housework and leisure time) that are significantly correlated to both perceptions of fairness concerning division of household labour and gender equality. Although the qualitative results in part confirm this picture, they also illustrate the complexity of concepts like fairness and equality. The interviews show that there are several factors and mechanisms at work in influencing perceptions of fairness and equality that were not possible to see from the quantitative analysis alone.

This article is based on a study of 10 married Swedish couples considering the different meanings money acquires and the implications of these meanings for individuals' access to money and consumption. The article examines the ways in which money and its use can create meaning and construct acts in couple relationships. The findings show that there are several kinds of 'special' monies. Money is often defined in terms of ownership and the data illustrate a variety of ways of defining money as jointly or privately owned. Family needs are central in defining money, but personal ownership of money is also important. Despite Swedish perceptions of gender equality and sharing, the data demonstrate persisting inequalities in terms of money. While using private money for family needs can express love and trust, it can also maintain the existing balance of power. The data support theories of gender system and gender contracts and the article argues that money is one way of shaping couple relations, while being also shaped by couple and other social relationships. Support was also found for the resource theory of power in that higher earnings and perceptions of ownership of money meant more control over money.

The aim of this study is to determine whether inequalities exist between Swedish women's and men's access to personal spending money and comsumption. The analyses are based on survey data from 1998 of 489 Swedish couples. The results indicate that control over financial decisions, money management and spouses' relative incomes are only marginally important for their access to personal spending money and consumption, which is in sharp contrast to the results from several previous studies. Main interpretations of the results have as their point of departure the for Sweden unique widespread egalitarian gender ideology and women's labour market participation and subsequent economic independence.