Using spouses' telephone interview responses (N = 1364, December 1978), we test the effect of wives' ten-year work attachment on their current employment status, and the effect of wives' work attachment, current employment status, and earnings on perceptions of household decisionmaking, the household division of labor, and on sex-role attitudes. Our most important findings are that work attachment, current employment status, and earnings affect husbands' but not wives' perceptions of decisionmaking, that both spouses' perceptions of the household division of labor are affected more by wives' current employment status than by their work attachment or earnings, and that attitudes most closely related to wives' employment are most responsive to it. These findings imply that attitude and behavior change tend to occur on pragmatic rather than ideological grounds.