Kevin Brown

The mutual’s survey of more than 2,000 UK adults shows a clear shift towards shared responsibility when it comes to the day-to-day running of a home, rather than dividing tasks down traditional lines.

Finances, long viewed as one of the more individual responsibilities within a home, are now just as likely to be jointly controlled. Almost half of respondents (48%) say they and their partner are equally responsible for holding the purse strings, compared with 46% who take the lead themselves. Just 6% say their partner is mostly responsible.

And although 52% of those surveyed said they had sole responsibility over food shopping for the household, over two fifths (44%) said they share responsibility over groceries.

Some 43% of respondents also said they share cleaning responsibilities equally with their partner, while 39% said the same about DIY and 41% the same about buying presents for friends and family.

The findings suggest a generational and cultural shift towards greater collaboration and joint decision-making within relationships as well as the erosion of outdated stereotypes about which partner is ‘supposed’ to handle certain household tasks.

Scottish Friendly’s savings specialist, Kevin Brown, said: “It’s clear from our research that a lot of modern households are taking a far more collaborative, team-based approach to life at home. Where previous generations often held fixed views about who should handle certain tasks, today’s couples are dismantling those old assumptions.

“Cleaning, DIY, food shopping and even managing the family finances are no longer the domain of one partner – they’re increasingly shared responsibilities. And when it comes to money in particular, it’s clear that the idea of one person ‘holding the purse strings’ is fading. Instead, couples are taking joint responsibility and treating the running of a household as a genuine partnership.”

Mr Brown added: “One area where people often take a more individual approach is investing, particularly as you tend to find that one member of a couple has a higher tolerance for risk than the other.

“It remains to be seen, though, whether this may change now that the government has decided to reduce the annual cash ISA allowance from £20,000 to £12,000.

“Couples may decide they need to save more collaboratively now that there will be a smaller cash allowance, to ensure they stay on track with their financial goals. What this change will hopefully lead to though, is that couples start to invest more – which is great for building long-term household financial resilience.”