Life In 19x19

hyperpape wrote:even in the US, women control a majority of household spending

Is this an impression, or an educated guess, or is there some citation or census evidence ?

( In other words, how do you know ?
Approx. 117 million households in the U.S. in 2009.
I'm not challenging this claim; I'm curious to see the data. )

EdLee wrote:

ez4u wrote:Nonsense. Japanese banks do not even allow joint accounts.

Hi Dave, forget the joint accounts; just direct deposit of the husband's salary to the wife's account -- you have not heard of anything like this ?

I have never heard of anything like that. Offhand I would doubt that forcing an employee to direct deposit into a spouse's account (Japan does have gender equality under the law - at least in theory - so any such rule should apply equally to working wives) would be legal under the Labor Law.

Hi Dave, some impressions:

• a
• b
• c

I wish I could search for more references in Japanese,
but I cannot.

EdLee wrote:Hi Dave, one person's impression .

Another impression .

Don't get me wrong. Luckily my wife has run our family finances throughout our 30+ years of marriage. She is way better organized and more diligent than I am. Meanwhile though, a lot of the stories about 'pocket money' allowances seem just wrong to me, at least for Tokyo. This city is simply too expensive for the amounts bandied about. There must be more to the family financing of daily life or Tokyo would be a ghost town - and it is anything but!

ez4u wrote:

EdLee wrote:Hi Dave, one person's impression .

Another impression .

Don't get me wrong. Luckily my wife has run our family finances throughout our 30+ years of marriage. She is way better organized and more diligent than I am. Meanwhile though, a lot of the stories about 'pocket money' allowances seem just wrong to me, at least for Tokyo. This city is simply too expensive for the amounts bandied about. There must be more to the family financing of daily life or Tokyo would be a ghost town - and it is anything but!

A couplathree times while I was working in large companies in Tokyo (OK, some years ago), someone would show me the contents of his wallet for the week. One commuter ticket, one company meal card, and a couple of thousand-yen notes. Any evening outings would be to establishments where the company runs a tab. The assumption is that a diligent salaryman wouldn't (or shouldn't) need more. I didn't ask if smokers got given a ciggie allowance too....

It reminded me of stories I've been told of industrial towns in the UK, where the husband would hand over his still-sealed paypacket to his wife, and be given an allowance in return. And further stories of companies that issue double-layer paypackets---an inner one with most of the money, contained in an outer one together with the remainer. I wonder if there are similar schemes in Tokyo?

EdLee wrote:

hyperpape wrote:even in the US, women control a majority of household spending

Is this an impression, or an educated guess, or is there some citation or census evidence ?

( In other words, how do you know ?
Approx. 117 million households in the U.S. in 2009.
I'm not challenging this claim; I'm curious to see the data. )

Not something I have a citation too off the top of my head, but one of those things I know I've read. Googling, here's one source (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/n ... rings.html), and one skeptical source (http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/do-women-r ... ding-1054/). It sounds like it's conventional wisdom in the sales and marketing world, but I don't know how much weight I'd give that.

Thanks for asking .