Delegating Financial Decisions to Spouse : Evidence from an Experiment with Older Couples

We examine the delegation behavior among Australian heterosexual couples aged 60 years and above using an incentivized experiment which requires participants to complete a series of ten financial decision-making tasks independently or delegate to their spouse. There is evidence of a strong desire to retain agency over financial decisions as 70% of the participants do not delegate a single task to their spouse. Men show extremely low likelihood of delegation. The odds of women delegating to their husbands are nearly 25 times higher than that of men delegating to their wives. This gender difference in delegation behavior is not explained by the difference in the financial competence of the spouses although the likelihood of delegation increases where the spouse has higher financial competence. Individuals with the authority to revoke delegation (or delegate selectively) tend to delegate more often and earlier compared to those who can only make irrevocable delegation. Overall, our findings suggest that gender identity plays a dominant role in delegation of financial decision-making authority within older couples, and along with desire for control, can override efficiency considerations