In Japan, double-income couples with children have been increasing over time. Many wives among double-income families earn an income by working and contribute to family finances. This study examines how wives’ relative resources and other factors affect couples’ decision-making regarding family finances, and how patterns of couples’ decision-making affect wives’ marital satisfaction among double-income couples whose youngest child is of junior high school age or older. This study adapted marital power theory, resource theory, and sociological gender stratification theory. Furthermore, the patterns of couples’ decision-making are “collaborative” and “wife-dominant.” This study focuses on 1,252 married working women living in Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa prefectures. A questionnaire survey was conducted on-line in February 2023. Structural equation modeling yielded three major results. First, the higher income of wives, their older age, their lower gender ideology, and the younger age of husbands encourage collaborative decision-making by couples about family finances. Furthermore, a collaborative decision-making pattern increases the marital satisfaction of wives. Couples where both the husband and the wife have high incomes tend to make collaborative decisions regarding family finances, a result that is well explained by resource theory. Second, the more dominant wives are in decision-making, the greater their marital satisfaction. Since such wives reduce the husbands’ handling of family finances, they maintain traditional gender roles and increase their own marital satisfaction despite their own income. Couples where both the husband and the wife have low incomes or where the husband has a low income and the wife has a high income tend to make wife-dominant decisions about family finances, a result that is well explained by sociological gender stratification theory. Third, the husband’s high income and education level directly increase the wife’s marital satisfaction. This study concludes that wives’ gender equality in marriage and marital satisfaction among double-income couples show diversity depending on marital power and gender ideologies.

  This study aimed to investigate why daughters are invariably responsible for the care of their elderly parents, and it did so through semi-structured interviews with 12 economically stable middle-aged women residing in regional cities in China, who have male siblings. The research findings indicate that: (1) because of their own economic stability, daughters who live relatively close to their elderly parents not only provide non-financial support but also assume financial responsibilities for their parents; (2) due to the commitments of “role commitment” and “relationship commitment,” daughters are strongly obliged to undertake the care of their elderly parents; and (3) these daughters experience conflict, for they feel the necessity to provide both financial and non-financial support for their elderly parents because of their own economic capability, while also wishing that other siblings would contribute what they can. Consequently, the study illuminated a situation in which daughters experience inescapability and conflict in elderly parental care.

  Recent studies have indicated that family caregivers bear significant responsibility for cognitive caring activities. They have also examined the ways in which care workers support family caregivers with the aim of alleviating their burdens and obligations. This study focused on postpartum doulas. Doulas are care workers who provide support to pre/postpartum mothers in the form of household, childcare, and communication assistance such as advising and consulting. Through in-depth interviews with 13 doulas, this study explored how they assisted in the decision-making process regarding their clients’ care needs, in particular the process of deciding meal menus. The study findings indicate that by adjusting their services to each client, the doulas actively listened to the concerns of the mothers. Furthermore, depending on the applicable care situation, they responded and related to their experiences, identified new care needs, and presented options to fulfil them. If necessary, they determined the care required for each client. The findings show that doulas actively supported the mothers’ decision-making at the level of care required. In conclusion, the doulas could prevent situations in which family caregivers perform cognitive caring activities by themselves, thereby alleviating the responsibility handled by family caregivers.