Financial Commitments of Commuter Couples

Agboola, Caroline, Kumswa, Sahmicit Kankemwa and Kang’ethe, Simon Murote (2025) Financial Commitments of Commuter Couples. Marriage & Family Review. pp. 1-23. ISSN 1540-9635 (In Press)

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Abstract

Commuter couples are married people who do not live in the same home due to various reasons. The decision for one spouse to live away from home is usually made to enhance the family’s socioeconomic condition. This study used a qualitative research approach to investigate the expenditures of 17 commuting couples in Jos, Nigeria. Findings revealed that the choice of the spouse who commutes is gendered and determined by a specific social norm in some parts of Africa. Unlike in Western countries, the burden of commuting was undertaken solely by the husbands because men are expected to take up the gender role of breadwinners in many parts of Africa. At the same time, the wives did not commute or rarely commuted. If the wives commuted, it was not for work but to visit the husbands in the secondary residence. This created two concurrent residences for the family: the primary residence, where the wife and children often resided, and a secondary residence, which is often far away from the primary residence. The husbands only lived in the secondary residence, which is close to their place of work, and visited the primary residence regularly. The findings indicate that running two residences compelled the commuter couples to spend a lot of money to secure accommodation for their two homes; two residences led to the duplication of daily expenses of the families, the high cost of maintaining contact between the couples via the telephone; living arrangements, the inconvenience and high travel cost for commuting between the two residences; and the financial obligations to the extended family, friends and community, which often required that the family spend money on the husbands’ commute to take part in such events.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: commuter couple | commuter marriage | couple and finance theory | finances | marriage
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Economics, Econometrics and Finance > Economics
Social Sciences and humanities > Psychology > Social Psychology
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Health (Social sciences)
JGU School/Centre: Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences
Depositing User: Mr Luckey Pathan
Date Deposited: 01 Jun 2025 10:41
Last Modified: 02 Jun 2025 10:18
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2025.2490982
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/9582

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