Shanghai wives hold the purse strings (2)

"We should be careful when analyzing online surveys, as the participants are limited to those who have access to the Internet," said Xue Yali, an assistant researcher from the Family Education Research Center under Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"On the other hand, managing money does not mean women are enjoying higher positions at home, as it can be very trivial matters like paying for power and gas," she noted.

"The key point is who does the decision-making in the family," she added.

Tony Wang, who works in wealth management in a foreign commercial bank in Shanghai, said he has more female clients than male. Wang is a Chinese but asked to use his English name to protect his privacy.

"I found more women have the power to allocate their wealth, but they tend to be cautious, and prefer products with small risks and small returns. Generally speaking, men are bolder in making investment decisions," he said.

Xue pointed out that for a traditional Chinese family it is very important that the women, especially housewives, control the money.

As the job market favors men, a woman is very likely to lose everything if her marriage fails. But as women become more independent with improved education and better pay, controlling family wealth is less important to them, she added.

According to research published last month by dating website Jiayuan, women are becoming more financially independent. Thirty-nine percent of women refuse to become housewives after getting married, and 98 percent said they would not ask their husbands to hand over their wages.

The survey of Horizon Research also found that women are earning more nowadays. More than 36 percent of women in cities have a higher income than their husbands.