Women's Power and the Gendered Division of Domestic Labor in the Third World

The study described in this article examines whether wives' relative resources and material conditions affect husbands' domestic labor within varying economic development contexts. The study tests: (1) whether wives' relative resources increase husbands' regularity of housework participation and (2) whether the effects of wives' relative resources on husbands' regularity of housework participation vary in quantity and effect at different levels of economic development. The study indicates that wives' material conditions and relative resources have no consistent, significant effects on husbands' regularity of housework participation. Levels of national economic development also have little effect.