ABSTRACT
It is estimated that 33 percent of women who maintain families are not in the paid labor force, most of them being single parents and married women whose homemaker roles are full time. While a minority of men may assume such roles, there is agreement in the literature that domestic labor consists of unpaid work undertaken by women in their own households (Williams 1988). A homemaker, therefore, is defined as a woman who works full time as an unpaid domestic laborer. While this core definition does not address marital status or parenting, most research on homemakers and their associated roles has been conducted on samples of married couples with dependent children. jMuch of this research would also suggest that the terms housewife and homemaker are interchangeable.
