Intimacy or tension? Decision-making patterns and marital quality in urban China

Research on household decision-making tends to treat decision-making power as unidimensional, paying less attention to the diverse patterns across domains and their associations with marital quality. Using data from the 2020 Beijing City Household Survey and employing latent profile analysis, we identify five distinct patterns, ranging from wife-dominant to husband-led arrangements: wife-dominant, specialized (wife-leaning joint), joint, specialized (husband-led), and gender display (husband-led). Decision-making patterns are differentially associated with marital interaction and marital dispute, with the direction and magnitude of these associations contingent on wives’ gender ideology. Among women with traditional gender ideology, husband-led patterns correspond to higher marital interaction and fewer disputes, whereas among women with egalitarian beliefs, joint and wife-leaning arrangements are associated with better marital quality. Overall, our findings underscore the multidimensional nature of household decision-making and highlight the central role of ideological congruence between decision-making practices and personal beliefs in shaping marital outcomes.