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Within heterosexual couples, women are more inclined to devote their budget to everyday tasks, while men favor “pleasure” spending. This is the conclusion of a survey carried out on the occasion of Valentine’s Day by the French eco-bank Hélios.
A “sad reality”. This is the term used by the authors of the survey to describe the expenditure items distributed between men and women who agreed to participate in the survey, carried out among 23,000 Hélios bank accounts.
Men spend more than women
First observation: men spend on average 240 euros more than their partner. And it is probably not to meet everyday needs that they put their hands in their wallets since, according to the survey, men above all favor expenditure items linked to leisure, in particular outings to restaurants. (+229€/year), travel (+21€/year) or even car expenses (+188€/year). For their part, women seem to invest more in everyday jobs involving taking care of the people who occupy the home. In particular, they devote a larger budget than men to everything relating to health (+83€/year), shopping (+58€/year), animals (+6€/year) or even schooling (+ 5€/year). They also spend more on shopping (+€138/year), beauty products (+€27/year) and decoration (+€19/year).
“Aesthetic”, “sexual” and “emotional: the different forms of mental load
An observation which is similar to that made by several previous studies and which the feminist author and journalist Lucile Quillet summarized pertinently in her work published in 2021 “The price to pay: what the heterosexual couple costs women”, published by Éditions Les Liens who liberate. Around the 50th page of her book, the author suggests to her readers who live as a couple with a man to go and inspect the contents of the bathroom and calculate the cost of all of her beauty products, then compare the addition to that of your spouse’s products. Observation for the author, who herself took part in the experiment: around 1000 euros on her side, compared to 4.99 euros for her partner! A way of raising awareness of the cost that societal injunctions that weigh on women and the different forms of mental burden can represent, whether “aesthetic”, “sexual” and “emotional”. According to the journalist’s calculations, hair removal would, for example, represent around 20,000 euros in a woman’s life over a period of 35 years, if we take into account the care at the beautician, the equipment or even any sessions. of laser.
The distribution of expenditure items according to gender is also an omnipresent subject in Lucile Quillet’s work. “Expenditures made within couples are strongly gendered. Women will, for example, invest more in food and household items while men will favor more “valuable” expenses such as the purchase of a car, furniture or electronic equipment. However, during a separation, it is the “durable” and not “perishable” goods that are included in the addition.“, explained the author to ETX Majelan news in 2021, on the occasion of the release of her book.