The More You Have, the More You Do: The Relationship Between Wife's Employment, Sex-Role Attitudes, and Household Behavior

This study explores the relationship between wife's employment, sex-role traditionalism, and the reported division of household tasks and decisions. Data were collected from three samples of currently married women between the ages of 18 and 49 in Los Angeles County. Sex-role traditionalism was positively related to wives’ relative performance of feminine tasks, but generally unrelated to masculine task performance and decision-making between spouses. Employed or professional women took primary responsibility for relatively fewer feminine tasks than did nonemployed or nonprofessional women. The findings suggest that despite differences among women in sex-role traditionalism and employment status, most women say that they and their spouses divide tasks in a traditional sex-role fashion.