ABSTRACT
Gender inequality in the United States is perhaps most apparent within the home. American women, even those employed full time, continue to work longer hours than do their husbands on household tasks, and there is little evidence that men's proportionate share of housework has changed much during recent decades (Coverman 1985; Gershuny and Robinson 1988; Hochschild 1989). But this focus on partners' hourly contributions to housework gives a rather incomplete picture of the household division of labor. Indeed, the concept of a household division of labor implies more than the simple arithmetic of relative shares of time devoted by each marital partner to domestic chores. It also implies that husbands and wives divide their available time among various tasks. The goal here is to illustrate a new measure of the gender division or segregation of household chores among American couples.
