Married Couples Combining Their Finances May Stay Happily Together

Researchers investigated whether randomly assigning married couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time.

Married couples who have joint bank accounts not only have better relationships, but they fight less over money and feel better about how household finances are handled. This finding is according to a new study published in Journal of Consumer Research.

Earlier studies have suggested a correlation that couples who merge finances tend to be happier than those who do not. But this is the first research to show a causal relationship ().

Unspoken Financial Principles of a Healthy Relationship

Researchers recruited 230 couples, who were either engaged or newly married at the time, and followed them over two years as they began their married lives together. Everyone began the study with separate accounts and consented to potentially change their financial arrangements. This was the first marriage for everyone involved in the study.

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Participants had a mean age of 28 years old. Three-quarters were white, and 12 percent were Black. Thirty-six percent had a bachelor’s degree and a median household income of $50,000. Couples had known each other, on average, about five years and had been romantically involved for an average of three years. Ten percent had children.

People of varying relationship lengths, those who had merged accounts reported higher levels of commonality within their marriage compared to people with separate accounts, or even those who partially merged their finances.

Some couples were then randomly assigned to keep their separate bank accounts, and others were told to open a joint bank account instead. A third group was allowed to decide on their own.

Money can Buy Happiness in Love

Couples who were told to open joint bank accounts reported substantially higher relationship quality two years later than those who maintained separate accounts, adding that merging promotes greater financial goal alignment and transparency, and a communal understanding of marriage ().

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Couples with separate accounts viewed financial decision-making as more of an exchange. With separate accounts, those in a marriage potentially may think it is easier to leave the relationship.

Twenty percent of participating couples did not finish the study, including a significant percentage of those who separated after not merging bank accounts. They found no gender differences in the results.

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This is the best evidence that we have to date for a question that shapes couples’ futures; and the fact that we observe these meaningful shifts over two years. On average, merging should warrant a conversation with your partner, given the effects that are seen here.

References:

Common Cents: Bank Account Structure and Couples’ Relationship Dynamics - (https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucad020/7077142?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
Link between Financial Management Behaviours and Quality of Relationship and Overall Life Satisfaction among Married and Cohabiting Couples: Insights from Application of Artificial Neural Networks - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32069851/)