Money Management and Control in the Indian Joint Family across Generations

Abstract

Studies of money management and control will have more cross-cultural relevance if the family context of money across generations is taken into account. The study of money management and control in middle-income nuclear and joint family households in urban India illustrates the importance of examining money flows within the wider family context because there is a two-way flow of money beyond the married couple – between parents and adult children, siblings and other members of the extended family. In the three or four generational joint family, control and management at the household level is not necessarily duplicated for the constituent couples. We draw on open-ended interviews of 40 persons from 27 urban middle-income households in North India, between November 2007 and January 2008, to show that the male control of money is the dominant pattern. This pattern is linked to the ideology of male dominance that is found among the middle, lower middle and struggling households, particularly in non-metropolitan households. The upper-middle-class households predominantly in metropolitan households show a pattern of joint or independent control. The focus is on the couple's money decisions within the context of the wider family.