Household Task Performance Roles of Husbands and Wives

This exploratory study involved conceptualization and empirical analysis of household task per formance roles and social‐demographic characteristics. Roles were viewed as recurrent patterns of action resulting from a combination of human resources and household tasks, and affected by social‐demographic characteristics. Data were collected in 1972 from husbands and wives in 100 young families. Although spouses shared in making and implementing task decisions, they tended to specialize, i.e., they differentiated roles. Wives had somewhat more total responsibility than husbands, especially in implementing decisions. Factor analysis yielded 14 factors, indicating dimensional variations among five types of fami lies. Further research with a larger sample is needed to examine hypotheses that could be generated from the factor analysis.