Chinese husbands may have more financial clout than their wives, but women have a far greater say over what ends up on the dinner table, a survey revealed yesterday.
The investigation, conducted by the Huakun Women's Investigation Center, said that more family property is in the husband's name, apart from shares, which are owned equally.
The survey covered 1,020 wives aged between 28 and 49. And 25.6 percent of the respondents were from large cities and 4.08 percent from rural areas.
More families have had to buy their own apartments as the state has abandoned the policy of offering low-rent housing to workers and staff members in institutions and enterprises.
The survey found that 66.2 percent of the houses purchased by the couples are in the name of husbands, 12.21 percent are in both names and only 20.89 in the name of the wives.
The survey found that wives seem indifferent to the ownership of bigger family property, revealing that 47.52 percent said that they didn't care whether they or their husband signed the house property certificates. And 24.47 percent of the wives thought it was perfectly natural for their husband to do this, as they regard him as the head of the households.
But, as opposed to housing, wives are far more interested in who has control over bank accounts.
The survey showed that 30.43 percent of families deposit their savings in the wife's name, 38.7 percent in the husband's name and 30.81 percent are joint accounts.
Although wives have less say over family property ownership, most of them have more spending power.
Just over half of the respondents - 51.06 percent - say they are the decision makers when it comes to spending, but their power can only really be exercised over the purchase of food, clothes and daily necessities.
When it comes to major items, such as electric appliances, cars and houses, most of the spending decision are jointly made.
The survey found that 44.72 percent of wives do not have a clear idea of the source of husbands' extra income. Most of them think they should give "some space" to their husbands, while some think it would either be difficult to find out this information or would hurt their husbands' feelings to ask about it.
The survey found that wives have become more aware of the importance of property notarization, with 58.78 percent of the respondents agreeing with the before-marriage property notarization.
(China Daily December 19, 2002)
