payment to the mother. As a result of this change, households have the same level of income and face the same

prices in the market, but the money is more likely to be in the mother's purse than in the father's wallet.

Should this change in policy alter household consumption patterns? Basic models of consumption decisions, of the

sort that we examined in this chapter, assume that it does not matter which parent or guardian receives the money,

because both seek to maximize the family's utility as a whole. In effect, this model assumes that everyone in the

family has the same makeup or has the same preferences.

There has not been extensive research on diverse family structures and guardian/parent sex and gender related to

spending. However, the older research on families with one man and one woman parent indicates that gender does

affect spending decisions. When the mother controls a larger share of family income a number of studies, in the
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