Alternative Strategies for Measuring Household Division of Labor

Abstract

This article explores some substantive and methodological implications of using different data gathering techniques for measuring a couple's division of household labor. Four measurement strategies, each requiring reports from both spouses, compared: the relative distribution approach, a weighted distribution, a time reconstruction method, and the activity log approach. Differences in average total estimates produced by the techniques are small, and regardless of the method used, the wife's contribution to housework is higher. Responsibility for domestic labor is suggested as one explanation for the finding that cross-method comparisons are closer for wives than husbands.