Scientists who collect survey data talk to a lot of people and ask them a lot of questions. That includes a lot of husbands and wives. Sometimes they ask the same question to both, but in separate meetings. For example about what the couple own, how they spend their time, how many kids they have and how many more they want.<\/p>\n
What is reassuring is that husbands and wives give mostly\u00a0the same answers. For nearly any question, 100% of husbands and wives agree on what is going on (says some recent research on this<\/a>).<\/p>\n On some questions however, husbands and wives disagree more. Some of these are on opinions, like \u2018how big do you want your family to be?\u2019 It\u2019s quite possible that couples do not agree. Or maybe they don\u2019t talk much about it. But others are about clear facts, as in: do you use contraception? In the cited research, men tended to paint a more socially popular picture than their wives, on questions related to family planning and sexual health.<\/p>\n Hm. Maybe due to context. Or maybe not.<\/p>\n What can be done? Well, the effect was actually more marked in areas where women had lower status relative to men. Areas with more equity between men and women showed more consistency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists who collect survey data talk to a lot of people and ask them a lot of questions. That includes a lot of husbands and wives. Sometimes they ask the same question to both, but in separate meetings. For example … Continue reading