Husbands' and Wives' Time Spent On Housework. A Comparison of Measures - Lee y Waite (2005)

Husbands' and Wives' Time Spent on Housework: A Comparison of Measures
Author(s): Yun-Suk Lee and Linda J. Waite

Source: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 67, No. 2 (May, 2005), pp. 328-336
Published by: National Council on Family Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600272 .
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YUN-SUK LEE
LINDAJ. WAITE
University of Seoul
University of Chicago*
Husbands'and Wives' Time Spent on Housework:

A Comparisonof Measures
This studycomparesa series of estimatesof the

time spent on houseworkfromsurvey responses
and time-use estimates from the Experience
Sampling Method (ESM) obtained from husbands and wives in the Sloan 500 Family Study.
These include estimates from husband's and
wife's answers to questionsabout own time and
spouse's time on household tasks, and time-use
estimatesfrom the ESM. The three ESM estimates include primary activity only, primary
plus secondary activity, and primary and secondary activity plus time spent thinkingabout
householdtasks. Wefind that estimatesof hours
spent on houseworkdiffersubstantiallyand significantlyacross various measures, as does the
absolute size of the gap betweenhours spent by
husbandsand wives. Share of houseworkdone
by husbandsdifferssomewhatless.
Wives spend substantiallymore time than their
husbandson family work, even though women
do less and men do slightly more now than 20
years ago (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson,
2000). Researchersfrom a wide range of disciplines have attemptedto isolate the causes and
Departmentof Urban Sociology, University of Seoul, 90

Jeonnong-dong,Dongdaemun-gu,Seoul, Korea 130-743.
*Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents,Children,and Work,
University of Chicago, 1155 E 60th Street, Chicago, IL
60637 (1-waite@uchicago.edu).
Key Words:gender gap, housework,time use.
328
consequences of this division of household

labor for men and women and for family functioning (Coltrane,2000; Shelton & John, 1996)
but have used differentmeasuresand methods.
This raises multiple problems for investigators,
especially when comparingtheirresultsto other
studies (Shelton& John).
Most researchersdefine household labor as
unpaid work that contributesto the well-being
of family membersand the maintenanceof their
home (Shelton & John, 1996). Most research
focuses on the more restricted category of
housework,which consists of physical activities
such as cleaning, laundry, and cooking. Few
studies include the other componentsof household labor-child care, emotional labor such
as providingencouragementor advice, andmental labor such as planning or household management (Coltrane, 2000), although these are
clearly important.
To estimate the amount of time spent on
housework, most previous studies use either
survey questions or time diaries (Coltrane,
2000; Shelton & John, 1996). In surveys, respondentsare asked to estimate the numberof
hoursthey or theirspouses spend on housework
or on selected household tasks. In time diary
studies, participantsare asked to reportall their
activities, usually for the previous day (Robinson & Godbey, 1997). Time on housework
activities is then added up across the day for
each respondent.Previous attemptsto compare
measuresof time spent on houseworkobtained
from time diary studies with survey reports
Journalof Marriageand Family 67 (May 2005): 328-336

MeasuringTimeon Housework
(e.g., Marini& Shelton, 1993) have been hampered by the absence of both types of estimates
in a single study. Because both the samples and
approachesdifferin these comparisons,the contributionthateach makes to discrepanciesin estimates of time spent on housework cannot be
distinguished.
In addition, both surveys and time diaries
generally obtain information from a single
member of a marriedcouple. As a result, comparisons of time spent by husbands and wives
rely on reportsby one respondenton the time
spent by self and spouse or on informationfrom
male respondents versus information from
female respondents. One importantexception,
the National Survey of Families and Households, asked both members of marriedcouples
similar questions on time spent on housework
but has no time-use datawith which to compare
the answers.
Scholars have developed a number of measuresof the division of housework,and each has
strengthsand weaknesses. One commonly used
measureis the share of houseworkdone by the
husband(Presser,1994). This has the advantage
of providinga simple and direct summarymeasure but may change over time or differ across
couples because of changes in the husband's
time, changesin the wife's time, or both.Bianchi
et al. (2000) suggest using insteadthe difference
between the hours spent by the wife and the
hours spent by the husband.The two measures
sometimestell differentstoriesaboutthe division
of housework,as we see later.
This study addressessome of these limitations
of previous research.It compares various estimates of the time spent on houseworkby husbands and wives, using datafrom couples in the
Sloan 500 Family Study. Estimates of hours
spenton houseworkby self and spouse arecalculatedfromresponsesto surveyquestionsaskedof
both husbandsand wives marriedto each other.
Survey estimatesare then comparedto estimates
for the same respondentsfrom the Experience
SamplingMethod(ESM), which producesa random sample of daily activities measured over
a 1-weekperiod,also obtainedfromeach spouse.
This study contributesto the debateaboutthe
gendergap in houseworkthrougha detailedand
careful comparisonof key measures of housework time for the same respondents.This article
addressesfive key questionsaboutthe measures
and methods used for studying time spent on
householdchoresby husbandsand wives and the
329
gender gap in housework. First, do estimates
dependon which spouse is asked?Second, does
the data collection method affect the estimates
obtained?Third, do estimates depend on how
one treats secondary activities-two activities
done simultaneously?Fourth,areestimatessensitive to the inclusion of mental labor, such as
householdmanagement,planning,and organization? Fifth, do conclusionsaboutthe gendergap
in householdlabordependon whetherone measures the gap as the differencein the numberof
hoursof houseworkdone by the husbandand the
numberof hours done by the wife or as the percentageof householdlabordone by the husband?
METHOD
Data
The data used here are drawnfrom a sample of
marriedcouples with children aged 5-18 years
participatingin the Sloan 500 Family Study,
which was carriedout in 1999 and 2000. The
Sloan Study obtained information from three
family members-mother, father,and child-in
each family using multiple methods-in-depth
interviews, questionnaires,and the ESM (describedin detail below). Most are non-Hispanic
Whites, in their mid-40s. The families in this
sample are economically advantagedcompared
to married parents in the United States as a
whole, with high levels of educationcompleted.
(See Hoogstra, 2005, for a detailed description
of the study.) This paper examines information
from the 265 married-couplefamilies in which
both the husbandand wife completedthe survey
and the ESM, who are somewhat more highly
educated than the sample as a whole, with
wives somewhatmore likely to be employed.
ExperienceSamplingMethod
The Sloan 500 Family Study collected data
from both spouses using the ESM (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), often described as a diary-like
method (Coltrane,2000). The ESM is a unique
time study process of data collection in which
respondents are given specially programmed
wristwatchesto wear for 1 week, duringwhich
time the watches "beep" during waking hours
at a randomtime within each 2-hourblock, producing eight signals a day with no two signals
being less than 30 minutes apart.When beeped,

330
Journal of Marriageand Family
ESM respondentsare asked to reporttheir primary activity ("What was the main thing you
were doing?") and their secondary activity, if
any ("What else were you doing at the same
time?"). ESM participantsare asked to report
what they are thinking about when signaled
("What was on your mind?"). The literature
examining the quality of the ESM data concludes that, in general, ESM data are reliable
and valid when compared with data obtained
from other instruments (Csikszentmihalyi &
Larson, 1987). Responses to the ESM can be
used to estimatetime spent by respondentsduring the sampledweek on a wide rangeof activities, includingtime spent on housework.
Measures
Household tasks. Most researchersagree that
major household tasks include (a) cooking, (b)
cleaning, (c) shopping for groceriesand household goods, (d) doing dishes, and (e) laundry
(Coltrane, 2000, p. 1210). These tasks are
includedin our estimatesof time spenton housework. Accordingto Coltrane,this routinehousework consists of tasks that are the most time
consumingand most frequentlydone, with little
flexibilityin scheduling.Thereis an additionalset
of tasks thatresearchersmay or may not include
in their definition of household labor: driving,
financialpaperwork,yard maintenance,and repairingtasks. Coltranecalls these occasional or
otherhouseholdtasks.We includeall these tasks
except driving,which we excludebecauseof idiosyncraticfeaturesof the Sloan data. Thus, our
measureof houseworkincludestime spentwashing dishes, cleaning the house, doing laundry,
cooking, shopping for the household, family
paperwork,andyardandhome maintenance.
Surveymeasures of own time and spouse's time
spent on housework.In the survey, respondents
were asked, for each task, "How many hours
per week do you personally spend on the following tasks?" They were also asked, "How
many hours per week does your spouse spend
on the following tasks?"The tasks andresponse
categories were identical on these two questions. Response categories included 0 hours,
1-2 hours, 3-5 hours, 6-10 hours, 11-15
hours, 16-20 hours, and 21 + hours. Each person provided estimates of hours spent on each
task for self and, separately,for spouse.
To estimate the number of hours spent on

houseworkfrom the response categoriesabove,
we assigned the value of the midpoint of the
response category for each task. For the openended category,we assigned the value 21 hours
because very few respondentsreport spending
more thanthatnumberof hourson a single task.
We calculatethe numberof hours each individual reportedspending on housework per week
by summing the hours for the seven tasks in
Table 1. We createa measureof the individual's
estimate of own time spent on housework, and
anothermeasureof the individual'sestimate of
spouse's time spent on housework.
ESM time-usemeasures of own time on housework activities. In the ESM, signals occur at
random, providing a representativesample of
time use by each respondent.Participantsare
typically signaled eight times duringtheir waking hours each day for 7 consecutive days, resulting in a total of 56 signals per week. The
time spent on household labor is measuredby
the ratio of the numberof beeps for which the
respondentreportsdoing household tasks to the
total numberof beeps the individualrespondsto
multipliedby the numberof waking hours per
week. The most restrictive and conservative
measure of time spent on housework is based
only on beeps for which respondentsindicate
that housework was the primary activity. A
more liberal measure of time spent on housework includes beeps at which respondentsreport doing houseworkeither as a primaryor as
a secondaryactivity.This more liberal(or latter)
measure adds 2 hours to housework time for
each hour spent doing the laundrywhile cooking dinner, for example, one for laundry and
one for cooking. Clearly,this measureprovides
an upper-boundestimateof houseworktime.
The ESM data also provide a measure for
how often respondents think about the eight
householdtasks includedin our measure,which
allows for the calculationof time spent on the
mental laborof housework,excluding the times
during which respondents were doing household tasks. All estimatesare weighted to correct
for differentialresponserates(Jeong,2005).
RESULTS
Table 1 presents estimates based on responses

to survey questions about self and spouse and
estimates based on responses to the ESM.

331
TABLE1. ESTIMATES
OFNUMBEROFHOURSSPENTONHOUSEWORK
PERWEEK:SURVEYANDTHEESM (N = 256)
Survey
Husbands
Wives
The ESM
Husbands
Reportedby
Self
Spouse
Self
Wives
Mental
Mental
Spouse Primary Secondary Labor Primary Secondary Labor
Washingthe dishes
2.9a
2.0
3.4a
3.1
0.9b
0.1
0.0
1.2b
0.5
Cleaning the house
2.4a
1.3
4.4
4.1
1.8b
0.8
0.3
3.3b
1.7
0.4
Laundry
1.6a
1.1
4.3
4.2
0.7b
0.4
0.1
1.4b
1.1
0.2
Cooking
Shoppingfor household
3.0a
1.9a
2.0
1.5
6.3a
3.1a
5.9
3.4
2.9
0.5b
0.8
0.0
0.3
0.2
5.2b
0.9b
1.7
0.2
0.9
0.4
Family paperwork
2.3a
2.1
2.2a
2.5
0.9b
0.3
0.7
0.8b
0.3
0.5
Yardand home maintenance 3.6a
2.8
2.4a
1.9
2.3b
0.6
0.8
2.2
0.8
0.7
26.0b,c,d
24.9e,f
3.0
2.3
15.0b
6.3
3.1
Total
17.7a,b,c,d
12.8e
10.0b
0.0
Note: Subscripta indicatessignificantdifferencebetween self-reportand spouse's reportatp < .05; b, significantdifference

between self-reportand ESM primaryatp < .05; c, significantdifferencebetween self-reportand ESM primary+ secondary
at p < .05; d, significantdifferencebetween self-reportand ESM primary+ secondary+ mentalatp < .05; e, significantdifference between spouse's reportand ESM primaryat p < .05; f, significantdifference between spouse's reportand ESM
primary+ secondaryatp < .05; g, significantdifferencebetween spouse's reportand ESM primary+ secondary+ mentalat
p < .05. ESM = ExperienceSamplingMethod.
Table2 compares the various estimates and

presents the gap in the number of hours spent
by husbandand wife and the husband'sshareof
houseworkimpliedby each.
Table 1 shows the mean numberof hoursthat
husbands(Column 1) and wives (Column3) reportedin response to survey questionsthat they
spent on various housework tasks per week.
Table 1 also shows the mean number of hours
that each reported that their spouse spent on
each task per week (Columns 2 and 4). This
table indicates that husbands and wives agree

that wives spend more time on household labor
than husbandsdo. Husbandsestimate that their
wives spend, on average, 24.9 hours per week
on housework(Column4). Wives estimate that
they spend 26 hours on the sum of these tasks
(Column 3). Note that these estimates do not
differ significantly.
Table 1 also shows that although spouses
agree on the approximate amount of time
that wives spend on housework, they differ
PERWEEK,DIFFERENCE
INHOURSBETWEEN
TABLE2. ESTIMATES
OFNUMBEROFHOURSSPENTONHOUSEWORK
DONEBYHUSBAND:
SURVEYANDTHEESM (N = 265)
HUSBANDANDWIFE,ANDPROPORTION
Survey
Wives' reporton self and
spouse
Husbands'reporton self and
spouse
The ESM
Primary
Primary+ secondary
Primary+ secondary+
mentallabor
Wives
Husbands
Difference
ProportionDone
by Husband(%)
26.0
12.8
13.2**
33
24.9
17.7
7.2**
42
15.0
21.3
24.4
10.0
13.0
15.3
5.0**
8.3**
9.1**
40
38
39
*p < .05. **p < .01.

332
significantlyand much more on the amount of
time husbandsspend (Column 1 vs. Column2).
On average, husbands report that they spend
about 18 hours per week on household chores,
but wives estimate that their husbands spend
only 13 hoursper week on domestictasks, a statistically significantdifference.Previous studies
suggest that this 5-hour discrepancymay come
from husbands' overestimation of their time
on household labor (Press & Townsley, 1998).
A comparisonof survey and ESM estimatesallows us to test this reasoning.
Table 1 also provides ESM estimates of the
time that husbands and wives in the sample
devote to household labor, separatelyfor each
task and for the total of all tasks. Column 5
gives estimates of time spent on housework as
a primary activity by husbands, given in
Column 8 for wives. Columns 6 and 9 present
estimates of time spent on housework while
doing somethingelse as a primaryactivity. Columns 7 and 10 present time spent thinking
abouthouseholdtasks.
ESM measures of time spent on housework
that include only the primary activity show
thathusbandsand wives spend about 10 and 15
hours, respectively, on household labor per
week. The estimate for marriedmen is similar
to that from time diary studies that count only
the primaryactivity (Bianchi et al., 2000). The
estimatefor marriedwomen, however, is significantly lower than time diary estimates based
only on the primaryactivity (Bianchiet al.). We
discuss possible reasons for this difference in
a latersection of the paper.
The ESM data in Table 1 show that, in this
sample, husbandsspend approximately3 hours
per week and wives spend about 6 hours
per week performing household tasks while
engaged in another activity that they consider
primary. Self-reportedhours of both husbands
and wives differ significantly from ESM
measures of their total housework hours that
includetime spenton houseworkas a secondary
activity.
Table 1 indicates that wives and husbands
spend between 2 and 3 hours per week on the
mental labor of housework, thinking about
household labor when they are not performing
household tasks. Consistent with the expectation of several researchers (Coleman, 1988;
Thompson, 1991), the gender gap in time spent
on mental labor is similar to the gap in time
spent on houseworkitself. In addition,the kinds
of tasks that married men and women think

about are as gendertyped as their actualperformance of household tasks, which is consistent
with the argumentthatwomen areheld accountable for the success of these tasks but not for
those less gender typed (Twiggs, McQuillan,&
Ferree,1999).
Comparisonsof Surveyand
ESMTime-UseEstimates
Table 1 shows the statisticalsignificanceof differences between survey self-reportsof time on
each housework task and the three ESM estimates discussed above. We see that survey selfreports of husbands differ significantly from
ESM estimates for the total of all tasks and for
all separate tasks except cooking. For wives,
survey self-reports differ significantly from
ESM estimatesof the total of all tasks and from
ESM estimatesof all separatetasks except yard
and home maintenance.
The bottomrow of Table 1 gives estimatesof
total housework hours obtained from survey
(self and spouse) and ESM (primary,primary
plus secondary, and primary plus secondary
plus mental).It also shows tests of the statistical
significance of differences between the measures. We see that husbands' hours of housework reportedon the survey differ significantly
both from wives' survey estimatesof husbands'
time and from all ESM estimates of his timethose including only primaryactivity, primary
plus secondary activity, and primaryplus secondaryplus mentallabor.Wives' surveyreports
of their hours spent on houseworkdo not differ
significantly from husbands' reports of wife's
hours but do differ significantlyfrom all ESM
estimatesof wives' hours.
Table2 shows the difference between husbands' and wives' time spent on houseworkand
the shareof houseworkdone by the husbandfor
each of the five estimates. The first row of
Table2 gives wives' surveyreportsof theirown
time on houseworkand theirhusbands'time on
housework. The second row gives husbands'
survey reports of their own and their wives'
time. The next three rows give estimates from
the ESM, using primaryactivitiesonly, primary
plus secondaryactivities, and primaryand secondary activities plus mental labor, for husbands and wives. Column3 gives the difference
in hours spent on housework (wives' hours
minus husbands' hours), and Column 4 gives

the proportionof housework done by the husband for each of the measures.Note that for all
estimates, husbands' hours differ significantly
from wives' hours.
The GenderGap in Housework
Husbandsand wives have differentperceptions
of the gap in their contributionsto household
labor,as Table2 shows, even though they agree
that wives spend more time on houseworkthan
husbandsdo. On average,the differencein husbands' reports of their own and their spouse's
time on housework is 7.2 hours, whereas for
wives the difference is 13.2 hours. In both
cases, the difference between estimates of own
time and estimates of spouse's time is statistically significant.
Various estimates differ in the conclusions
they would suggest about husband's share of
housework,as Column4 of Table2 shows. The
lowest estimate of husband's share-33%comes from the wife's responses on both her
time on householdtasks and her husband'stime
on those same tasks. The highest estimate42%-comes from the husband'sresponses for
both himself and his wife. Estimates of husband's share based on ESM data fall between
those based on answersto survey questions.All
three ESM measuresof the husband'sshare are
virtuallyidentical.
CONCLUSIONS
Using data collected through surveys and the
ESM for husbands and wives from the same
families in the Sloan 500 Family Study, we
develop and compare a series of estimates for
the division of household labor, which range
from restrictive to inclusive. These estimates
differ in the method of data collection, in who
answersthe questions and about whom they are
asked, and what activities are included as
housework.These estimatesallow us to address
our researchquestions.
First, to what extent are estimates of husbands' and wives' housework time affected by
who provides the information?Our results suggest thatthe answeris quite dramatic.
We find that husbands and wives provide
similar estimates of wives' time on household
labor but divergentestimates of husbands'contributions. Previous studies often assume that
husbands overestimate their own contribution
333
(Press & Townsley, 1998) but that both husbands and wives make accurateassessments of
the wife's time (Kamo, 2000). We find little
supportfor this view. Analyses of the datafrom
surveys and the ESM supportthe argumentthat
wives make accurate estimates of husbands'
time on housework,whereashusbandsoverestimate their own time. But these same analyses
also suggest that both wives and husbandsmay
substantiallyoverestimate the amount of time
wives spend on housework. These biases lead
men and women to have different perceptions
about the size of the gender gap in household
labor. Our results suggest that, on average,
wives in the Sloan Study think that they do 13
hours more houseworkper week than theirhusbands do. But husbandssee the gap in hours as
only abouthalf as large. These differentperceptions of each spouse's contributionmay lead to
marital conflict (Hochschild, 1989), regardless
of the actual amount of time that husbands
and wives allocate to household labor (Wilkie,
Ferree,& Ratcliff, 1998).
Second, does the data collection method
affect the estimates obtained?Our results suggest that it does, and that the differences
between survey measures and ESM time-use
measures are statistically significant and-for
some estimates-quite substantial. Our ESM
estimates of primary activities only show that
wives in our sample spend 15 hours per week
on housework. Survey estimates based on the
wives' responses on their own time on housework show 26 hours per week. This large and
statistically significant difference in estimates
between methods for the same individuals
points to a substantialchallenge for measurement of time spenton householdlabor.
Third, does inclusion of secondary activities
matter? Our results suggest that it does,
although the effect is modest. Estimates of
housework time for wives increase from 15 to
21.2 hours, with the inclusion of secondary
activities. ESM data show that wives are more
likely than husbands to report performanceof
household tasks as their secondary activity, so
that adding secondary activities increases the
houseworkgender gap from 5 to 8.2 hours and
reduces the share of housework done by the
husbandslightly from 40% to 38%.
Fourth,to what extent areestimatesof housework time and the housework gender gap
affected by inclusion of time spent thinking
about household tasks? Again, our results

334
suggest that the effect is modest. We find that
husbandsand wives spend 2-3 hours per week
thinkingabouthousehold laboreven when they
are not performinghousehold tasks, which supports Mederer's (1993) argument that these
tasks are an importantcomponentof household
labor. We also find that wives spend about 1
hour more per week on this mental labor than
their husbands do, so including time spent
thinking about housework raises our estimates
of the housework gender gap slightly to 9.4
hours per week and decreases husband's share
of houseworkmodestly from40% to 37%.
Fifth, do conclusions about the size of the
genderdivision of labordependon whetherone
uses absolutedifferencesin hoursor the proportion of houseworkdone by the husband?This is
a complicated question to answer. Hours provide a convenient metric, easily translatedinto
dollars given a wage rate or into days lost to
work or leisure. So, a gender gap of 13 hours,
which we estimateif we use the wife's reportof
her own and her husband'stime on housework,
suggests that women are working almost 2 full
days more than their husbands,on average. Interpretingthe proportionof houseworkdone by
husbands is more complicated because this
measure depends on both how much time the
husband spends cleaning, shopping, and doing
yard work and how much time the wife spends
on similar tasks. Husband's share can go up
because either he does more or his wife does
less, as Bianchiet al. (2000) point out.
We find that the proportion of housework
done by the husbandvaries from 33% to 42%
over our various estimates. The absolute gap
varies from 5.0 to 13.2 hours.Note thatboth the
largest absolute gaps and the smallest proportion done by the husbandcome from the wife's
estimates of her time and her husband's time.
The smallest absolute gap in hours comes
from ESM estimatesthat include primaryactivity only.
Implicationsof these findings are clear: Conclusions about the size of the gender gap in
housework depend substantiallyon who provides the information about time spent on
housework, what information that person is
asked to provide, and how housework is
defined.Results show large and statisticallysignificantdifferencesbetween survey self-reports
of houseworktime and those estimatedfrom the
ESM collected in response to random signals
over the course of a week for primaryactivities.
This suggests that researchersshould be quite

cautious in their use of measures that simply
add togetherrespondentreportson the amount
of time spent in a typical week on a series of
houseworktasks. This methodof assessing total
hours spent on housework seems to provide an
upper-boundestimate. Comparison of survey
and ESM estimates suggests that wives inflate
their own time substantially more than they
inflate their husbands',whereashusbandsoverestimate both their own time and their wives'
time more consistently.This means that studies
that use both the wife's reportof her own time
on housework and her reportof her husband's
time on housework (Goldscheider & Waite,
1991) contain substantialbias that differs for
the husbandand wife.
Results reported here also suggest that researchers should give considerablethought to
the treatmentof houseworkdone as a secondary
activity. A sizable proportionof time spent on
houseworkis done in conjunctionwith otheractivities, often other housework tasks. A researchermight decide to count only the time
spent primarilyon houseworkto limit total time
spentto a 24-hourday. Altematively,a researcher
might decide to give full creditfor time spenton
houseworkwhile doing anotheractivity,thereby
allowing a respondentto get creditfor 2 hoursof
houseworkwhen only 1 hour of total work was
done. Estimatesthatignorehouseworkdone as a
secondaryactivityprovidea conservative,lower
bound of time spent. Perhapsmore important,
estimates of housework as a primary activity
suggest that dual-career middle- and uppermiddle-classmothersand fathersspend modest
amounts of time on housework in an average
week-only about 15 hours for women and
about 10 hours for men. Adding time spent
doing housework while also doing something
else brings ESM estimates closer to those obtainedfrom surveyquestions.
Considerationof housework done as a secondary activity gives us a way to reconcile the
very large differencesbetween surveyresponses
and time-use data in estimates of own time in
household labor. Tasks done frequently, in
small blocks of time, seem to be difficultfor respondentsto summarizeinto a numberof hours
a week spent on that task. Thus, they may
think of the task as taking the whole block of
time during which it was done, ratherthan as
10 minutes here and there within that block
while otheractivitiesconsumedthe remainder.

335
We argue that researchersusing measuresof
houseworktime obtainedfrom responsesto survey questionsshouldthinkaboutthese measures
as includingboth primaryand secondaryhousework activities, with double counting of two
housework activities done at the same time.
They should also keep in mind that when respondentsreporthouseworkas a secondaryactivity, they are most commonly engaged in
anotherhouseworktask as theirprimaryactivity.
Wives' time on housework measuredby answers to survey questions asked of either wives
about their own time or husbands about their
wives' time is quite similar to ESM estimates
that include primaryplus secondaryplus mental
activity on household tasks (26.0 vs. 24.9 vs.
23.5). Although wives' self-reportsdiffer statistically from the most inclusive ESM estimate,
husbands' estimates of wives' housework time
do not. The mechanismsthat producethis similarity are unclear, but it is possible that respondents think about household tasks more
globally thando researchersconstructingsurvey
questions, and so include time planning for
household tasks or doing several at once. Respondents may also include in their time estimates other activities that they consider as
necessary preludes to or components of the
householdtasks aboutwhich they are asked.
This study has a number of limitations that
must be kept in mind. First,the dataused in this
study are limited in ways that may affect the results. The marriedcouples in the sample were
selected from a small numberof communities,
so the sample is not nationally representative.
The marriedcouples that agreed to participate
in this study may also differ from those in the
nation as a whole in the amount of time they
spend on housework. A larger and perhaps
more importantissue is that most husbandsand
wives in the sample are drawn from middleor upper-middle-classcommunities, with relatively high levels of education and income
comparedto the populationof the United States
as a whole. These families purchasemore services to replace spouses' time in houseworkthan
most families in the United States (Spitze,
1999). Highly educated men and women also
tend to hold more liberal attitudesthan others
towardthe appropriaterole for men and women
and toward the division of household labor,
which tends to increasehusband'sparticipation.
For these reasons, with a more nationallyrepresentative sample, the housework gender gap
may be more pronounced.Second, we treat all

houseworktasks equally, although some recent
research (Coltrane,2000; Twiggs et al., 1999)
suggests that tasks differ both in the extent to
which they are done more frequently by one
genderand in the frequencywith which they are
done. Futureresearchmight explore the differences in measuresof houseworktasks for these
different types. Third, our comparisonfocuses
on housework ratherthan on the broadercategory of householdlabor. Futureresearchshould
explore measurementissues when time spent on
child care and on emotionallaborare included.
NOTE
Theresearchreported
herewas supported
by the AlfredP.
SloanCenteron Parents,Children,
andWorkat theUniveratthe2001
sityof Chicago.An earlyversionwaspresented
annualmeetingof the AmericanSociologicalAssociation,
Anaheim,California.
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Husbands' and Wives' Time Spent on Housework: A Comparison of Measures

Author(s): Yun-Suk Lee and Linda J. Waite

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