Study: Married working women earn more clout in family decisions

BOULDER – A new University of Colorado study shows that married women who work wield more decision-making power over major household expenses like buying a car or appliances.

Francisca Antman, an assistant professor of economics at CU-Boulder, authored the study published in Applied Economics Letters. She used data from a survey of families in Mexico, interviewing couples once in 2002 and again between 2005 and 2007.

The study found that if a married woman has worked in the prior 12 months the likelihood of her involvement in decisions over major purchases with her husband increases by about 5 percentage points.

The study…