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Retirement scholars (and policy makers) have traditionally assumed spouses share their retirement savings, even when they are financially heterogamous and their individual saving capacities diverge. Recent research, however, has challenged this assumption, emphasising that wealth is unequally distributed within couples. In this study, we contribute to this debate by exploring how often financially heterogamous spouses describe their management of retirement savings as joint and redistributive. Data collected in Québec (Canada) in 2015 show that 28 per cent of couples with an income differential report to balance retirement savings across partners. Building on exchange and institutional theories of conjugal behaviour, we also stress that the prevalence of this practice varies with several factors, including union duration and matrimonial status. These findings suggest policy makers underestimate the size of the population at risk of old age financial vulnerability when assuming lower-income individuals are well prepared for retirement if partnered with a better-off spouse who saves.

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Objective This article explores the conjugal testamentary practices of married and cohabiting people aged 25–50 depending on having children from other unions, shared children, and gender. Background After the death of a partner, inheriting may reduce adverse financial consequences for the surviving spouse. However, the deceased's will defines whether or not the spouse inherits. Moreover, unmarried people may be less likely than the married to include their partner as one of their heirs, and parents (especially mothers) of children from previous unions may hesitate to bequeath to their current partner. Yet, conjugal testamentary practices remain understudied. Method Using data from Québec, Canada (N = 3052) and controlling for socio‐demographic factors, multinomial models explore the will status of cohabiting and married people and the position of partners as heirs depending on children situation and gender. Results Although most married people count their current partner as one of their heirs, only a minority of cohabitors do so. Also, cohabiting people with children from previous unions are less likely than those without to make their current partner an heir, especially if the couple has no shared children. In contrast, married women with children from previous unions are as likely as those without to include their spouse among their heirs, and married men are more likely to do so if they have children from a different union. Conclusion Results support the hypotheses of a matrilineal tilt in wealth transmissions as stepfamilies diffuse and of a “swapping families” effect of remarriage for men.

Multiple studies examine how couples organize their economic resources, but most focus on wages, with little attention to assets. This paper helps to fill this research gap in Québec (Canada) by asking what proportion of married and cohabiting different‐sex couples of working age jointly own their primary residence, instead of remaining in more independent arrangements regarding this asset—either through individual ownership of the home by the man or the woman or by not owning one at all. Also, drawing on transaction cost and institutional approaches to economic organization, we explore variation on several relationship characteristics. Individual ownership is uncommon, especially by the woman, but it is more prevalent among couples with little time together and who do not have children. Individual ownership is also more common among income‐unequal couples than equal ones, because, we argue, it allows primary earners to cover housing costs without transferring wealth. Those results advance knowledge on both within‐household wealth inequality and conjugal redistributive practices.

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