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How much does a straight couple cost women?

2021-12-08T11:05:43.695Z


Where does women's money go when they are in a relationship, the one they have and the one they will never have? This is the question posed by


Money in the couple.

An intimate subject, also “highly political”, designates the author Lucile Quillet in her recently published essay “The Price to Pay” (Les Liens qui Libéré editions).

Behind innocuous sentences like "we are not going to count between us", "when there are two purses in a couple, it does not go", hides a largely deficit balance to the detriment of women that the journalist, specialized in the study of their professional life, reviews.

“Loving a man does not make you poorer.

Living in a heterosexual couple who meet social standards, yes, ”she says.

A gap that women hardly ever manage to close

Time and money invested to meet beauty standards (just 21,000 euros spent over a lifetime to wax ...), support for the contraceptive method and the medical follow-up that goes with it, distribution of daily expenses without take into account the pay differentials (in 75% of couples, the man earns more than his partner), free domestic work and childcare which weigh more heavily on women to the point, very often, of slowing down their professional careers.

It is a sum of uses linked to social constructions which, over time, will create a gap between the resources of one and the other… that it will hardly ever manage to fill.

Read also Domestic work: women present the bill

The availability that a woman frees up for her household never turns into capital. This is not the case for his partner freed from a large number of constraints leaving him free to develop professionally, to save, to accumulate retirement points… He is already earning more, let's be pragmatic: priority to his career. Result: women receive on average 42% less salary than their partner. “Having become mothers, we expect them to devote themselves to playing on the adjustment variables, gauging the degree of attachment to their child and their involvement in his schedule. In fact, the more they have, the more their activity rate drops, ”analyzes Lucile Quillet.

All the hours worked on taking care of the kids, the house, etc. count for nothing when we separate.

I worked less when the children were small because it was necessary and I could, my career suffered, but nobody cares in the end.

- huge latatui (@fieldelanation) November 11, 2021

Many women spend part-time so that the couple can save on the nanny (knowing that they are already the most numerous to occupy the most precarious jobs, the least valued and therefore the least paid).

"They lose part of their salary, their partner keeps it entirely or even increases it, the household money is maintained", writes the author.

Thus, during a separation, women see an average loss of 20% of their standard of living compared to 3% for a man.

Two years after a divorce, the rate is still 16% for women while the counter is reset to zero for these gentlemen.

"These inequalities linked to the gendered division of labor accumulate throughout life"

A phenomenon also observed in the work “Le genre du capital. How the family reproduces inequalities ”(La Découverte editions, 2 020). The two authors, Sibylle Gollac, researcher in sociology at the CNRS, and Céline Bessière, professor of sociology at the University of Paris Dauphine, observe that the non-sharing of tasks creates real patrimonial inequalities, particularly visible during a separation. “These inequalities linked to the gendered division of labor accumulate throughout life. Women save less, since their income from work is lower. We thus conclude, in a somewhat provocative way, that while women work, men accumulate. "

As for domestic work, invisible and voluntary, it represents a significant part of a country's economy. An INSEE study conducted by Delphine Roy in 2012 thus demonstrated that the value of domestic work in France contributed to a national production equivalent to 33% of the GDP in 2010.

“We don't have a big difference in salary between my partner and me.

But he has savings that I don't have, ”says Marie, 44 years old.

“Money was never part of my education, whereas with him it was a subject like any other.

My partner made investments in his youth that allow him to see it coming.

I grew up with the idea that it was not a women's affair, ”decrypts the quadra.

Here she points to gender norms infused from childhood.

Women, who, when they are small, receive 12.5% ​​less pocket money than boys, are thus brought up very early on in the idea that they are "zero in money", specialized in giving of themselves rather than for finance.

"With us, it's 50/50"

At Louise and Tony it's “50/50 ″. “We have a common account where we put an equal amount for common expenses: shopping, charges, rent… It's square! », Judges the young woman. Are they earning the same salary? "No, not exactly, he gets 200 euros more, but hey… we're not going to quibble". Understood: we love each other so we're not going to let sordid money matters obscure the romance.

"The subject does not arise from love or people, but from a gendered system that goes beyond us, so internalized that it is exercised even to the accounting logic of the State, when calculating alimony, housing assistance and to condition a survivor's pension, ”lists the author. Because even after the death of the spouse, this pattern continues. Having "worked" less than men, women receive an average pension of 1,145 euros, or 40% less.

To fight against this inequality, a percentage of the spouse's pension (54% for the general scheme) is paid 88% to the wives (longer life expectancy requires).

But, the device is only for married couples, you should not earn more than 21,320 euros gross annually.

And if you live again as a couple, the State can refrain from paying this part "considering that the economies of scale that you achieve with your spouse take over", specifies Lucile Quillet.

And the latter concludes: "If another man enters your life, you pass under a new chaperoning".

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2021-12-08

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