Husband/Wife Differentials In Household Work Time: The Case of Dual‐Earner Families

Abstract

In spite of the tremendous increase in the burden of market work faced by married American women in the last decade, the differential in household work time between husbands and wives still persists. The results of this study assert that the differences in socioeconomic characteristics between husbands and wives explain only part of that differential. We argue that persisting role expec tations that assign household work on the basis of sex might explain the major part of the variance, and that these role expectations are partly clarified by the conceptual framework of the work‐family role system.