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…

The companionate theory of marriage suggests that egalitarianism in practice and belief leads to higher marital quality for wives and higher levels of positive emotion work on the part of husbands. Our analysis of women's marital quality and men's marital emotion work provides little evidence in support of this theory. Rather, in examining women's…

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…

Using grounded theory methodology, I establish family identity management as an important type of invisible work that connects women's household-based domestic activities with community members perceptions and treatment of them and their family members. Detailed observations of household routines and family interactions, as well as in-depth…

This article assesses the relative explanatory value of the resource-bargaining perspective and the doing-gender approach for the division of housework in the United States and Sweden from the mid-1970s to 2000. The data used are the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Swedish Level of Living Survey. Overall results show that housework…

I argue that both the dominant models of the relationship between earnings and housework, economic dependence and gender display, have fundamental defects. They focus on the effect of women's earnings compared to their husbands' on their housework and ignore the possibility of an independent relationship between women's own earnings and their time…

Designed for parents, this primer presents information on threats to children's health that can be found in every American home, including disinfectants, art supplies, pesticides, and toxins in food and drinking water. The primer also provides practical information on safe and environmentally friendly household cleaners and disinfectants, outlines…