Charitable Giving by Married Couples Revisited

Generous or Greedy Marriage? A Longitudinal Study of Volunteering and Charitable Giving

“…Power in financial and time allocation decisions is based on the resources each partner brings to the household and the attractiveness of his or her non‐cooperative alternatives within (Lundberg & Pollak, ) or outside (McElroy & Horney, ) the partnership. The bargaining model predicts that the partner with more education and more earnings is more likely to influence decisions about the allocation of resources, including donated money and time (Andreoni, Brown, & Rischall, ; Bilodeau & Slivinski, ; Pollak, ; Yörük, ). The need to bargain with one's spouse would add a “transaction cost” to each charitable giving decision, making it less emotionally rewarding to give money to charity.…”

“…The need to bargain with one's spouse would add a “transaction cost” to each charitable giving decision, making it less emotionally rewarding to give money to charity. Andreoni and colleagues () used the theory of transaction costs to explain why joint‐deciding couples give less to charity than couples in whom only one person decides, but it should be noted that a later study (Yörük, ), which used PSID data, found that joint deciders actually gave more to charity.…”

“…Although estimates of participation in giving and volunteering vary greatly according to survey methodology, most surveys find that women in the United States volunteer more than men (Einolf, ), whereas in most European countries men volunteer more than women (Wiepking & Einolf, ). Research on charitable giving among single adults in the United States is divided, with different studies finding higher donations among women (Mesch et al, ; Yörük, ) or among men (Einolf, ) or no difference (Andreoni & Vesterlund, ). A study of charitable giving in Europe found that women were more likely to donate money in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; men were more likely to donate money in Greece, Ireland, Poland, and Slovenia; and there were no significant gender differences in 13 other countries (Wiepking & Einolf, ).…”

“…Women are more likely to give to all categories of charities except combined purpose, neighborhood, and recreational organizations (Andreoni et al, ). This gender distinction continues after marriage; in households in which the husband makes most of the decisions about charitable giving, the household gives to fewer charities than households in which the wife makes most of the decisions (Yörük, ).…”

“…Andreoni et al found that couples who made giving decisions together gave less to charity than couples in whom only one spouse decided, suggesting that the cost of having to bargain over giving decisions reduced the desirability of giving by increasing the psychological cost. However, two more recent studies found that making decisions together increased the total amount of donations (Wiepking & Bekkers, ; Yörük, ). Brown and Zhang () found that among already‐married couples with children, child‐related volunteering decisions resembled decisions about housework in that husbands' and wives' time substituted for one another's and housework, market work, and wages earned by each parent affected his or her volunteering.…”