Responds to papers by Gottman, Napier, and Pittman. Focuses on the dilemma of men's contributions to housework. Questions whether the real training ground for the development of men's emotional selves is not in men's groups, but in the kitchen, at home-cooking, caring, and cleaning. (ABL)

Examined relationship between wives' (N=147) employment status and their versus their husbands' (N=154) time spent on household tasks. Compared adjusted mean time that women and men spent in specific household tasks. Found employed women spent less time on female-typed tasks than full-time homemakers. Found husbands' total housework time not…

An understanding of basic attitudes toward housework is explored to fill a logical gap in the research into equity issues within households. Men's and women's attitudes and standards are compared. Results for women are compared with findings from a 1975 survey. Discussion relates findings to research and theory. (EMK)

Revised estimates of the time married women spent in household work were made using data from the 1920s and 1960s. Results showed an overall decline from 7.35 hours per day in the 1920s to 6.31 hours in 1967-68. Household work by full-time homemakers declined by 7.5% to 6.84 hours per day; employed married women's household work declined to 5.13…

We examine affective closeness, contact, and helping among adult siblings using data for over 1,500 respondents in 2-child families from the National Survey of Families and Households. Using this subsample allows us to investigate differences by gender of respondent and of individual siblings using a nationally representative sample. We find that…

Drawing on data from a panel study of White women spanning 31 years, the analyses examine the influence of women's employment on the gendered division of household labor. Multiple dimensions of women's employment are investigated, including accumulated employment histories, current employment status, current employment hours, and relative income.…

Recent predictions suggest that because of the increase in the number of women acquiring gainful employment, work in the home should be divided in more egalitarian ways. Recent research, however, has shown that traditional male tasks were more likely to be shared than were traditional female tasks. This study investigated further the…

Investigated the relationship between marital satisfaction and perceptions of the distribution of housework and child care from two theoretical perspectives--social exchange and equity--in four population groups. Results show that there are significant relationships between marital satisfaction and perceptions of the distribution of housework and…

Time data indicate that, even when employed outside the home, wives still spend more time in household production than other family members. Wives spent less time in dishwashing and care of clothing activities, while children spent more time shopping, in 1977 than in 1967. (Author/CT)

Following an overview of historical and current orientations to the study of housework, prevailing assumptions that underlie this research are examined. As most research has emphasized technical, economic, and political dimensions, it is suggested that housework be reconceptualized as family work with its basis in moral obligation. (JPS)

Reviews feminism and family research, noting that feminist explanations of how families operate and contribute to maintaining women's subordination have shifted in 1980s from those that emphasize sex roles and socialization to those that describe processes of categorization and stratification by gender. This latter approach, called gender theory,…

Used data from Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate process by which spouses allocate their labor between employment and housework. Findings indicated that both women's market and domestic labor were highly sensitive to family economy, whereas men's market labor was subject to macroeconomic structure and men's domestic labor was little…

Examined data drawn from representative sample survey of two-earner households (n=382 couples) on division of domestic labor. Concludes that implicitly and explicitly gendered expectations that both husbands and wives bring to thinking about housework play significant role in shaping degree of egalitarianism in practice. (Author/NB)

Studies marital relations of 469 Israeli couples, in late adulthood, categorized as synchronous (either both pre-retired or both retired) and asynchronous (one spouse working and one retired). Examines differences between the groups for division of household tasks, power relations, and quality of marriage. Martial power relations were generally…

This study asks how cohabiters housework patterns vary by their marital intentions. I draw on interactionist theories that view housework as an activity that produces gender and family to hypothesize that cohabiters who are more invested in their relationships will spend more time on housework. Analyzing the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families…