DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR AND MARITAL ADJUSTMENT IN TWO-EARNER FAMILIES

This study examined division of household labor and marital adjustment in two-earner families as a function of sex role attitudes and androgyny. Previous research applied social exchange or economic theories to explain household division of labor. This study followed the work of Pleck (1985) and others who investigated the effects of husbands' and wives' sex role attitudes on wives' "role overload", husbands' "role underload", and marital adjustment.;Wives had significantly more family work time and significantly less paid work and leisure time than their husbands. Husbands' family time was best explained by their level of education and the age of the youngest child. Fifty percent of the wives wished that their husbands would do more child care and housework. Eighty-six percent of the husbands felt that they did an average or greater than average amount of housework. Husbands and wives generally agreed in their assessment of the husband's amount of family work. However, these perceptions did not correlate strongly with husband's actual family work, indicating that the perceptions were perhaps more influenced by the marital partner's perception than they were by an accurate time use appraisal.;In general, couples in the sample had high marital adjustment. Higher paid work or family work did not predict lower marital adjustment for wives so the "role overload theory" was not supported. Husbands with more leisure time had lower marital adjustment than "busier" husbands. For both husbands and wives, androgyny and congruence in sex role attitudes predicted higher marital adjustment more strongly than demographic factors or household labor division.;Participants were 50 couples from metropolitan Los Angeles. Each spouse was employed at least 30 hours per week and had at least one child age twelve or younger living in the home. Each filled out a 24-hour time diary for the same "typical" working day and a questionnaire which included the Attitudes Towards Women Survey (AWS) to measure sex role attitudes, the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) to measure androgyny, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale to measure marital adjustment, and an instrument to measure self-esteem. Wives and husbands were asked to assess husbands' contribution to child care and housework.