Subjective Expectations of Husbands and Wives and Couples' Decision-Making under Uncertainty

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Many important decisions are taken as a couple, and the outcomes of these decisions are often uncertain. It is well-known that spouses may have different preferences over outcomes, but little attention has been paid to the fact that spouses may have different subjective expectations ("beliefs") regarding the realization of outcomes. First, we document the beliefs of husbands and wives regarding a rich set of consequences of contraceptive use and non-use. Second, we propose and implement a test of the relative weight couples put on her beliefs vs. his, as revealed by actual choices, and which does not assume that decisions are efficient unless spouses have the same beliefs. We find that husbands and wives have very different subjective expectations, and that there are gendered spheres of (perceived) expertise. When couples make contraceptive decisions, the beliefs of wives tend to have more weight than those of their husbands regarding contraceptive technology and contact with health providers. But the couple's contraceptive decisions put more weight on the beliefs of husbands than wives' when it comes to intangible outcomes regarding long-term consequences of contraception and perceived approval by people of the same religion. These findings suggest that the optimal targeting of information interventions to husbands or wives is domain-dependent.