Wives and household wealth: the impact of the 1870 British Married Womens Property Act on wealth-holding and share of household resources

Abstract

I examine wealth-holding and the share of household wealth owned by women married in the years surrounding the 1870 Married Women's Property Act. The Act, which gave women married after 1870 the right to own and control personal property, serves as a natural experiment to examine the extent to which individuals respond to the law. I link wealth-holding data to census information and find that, as a result of the Act, women married after 1870 shifted their wealth-holding away from real property to personal property. Moreover, women married after the Act owned a larger share of household wealth than women married before the Act.