Family Economics Review [1982, Number 3]

              /t 17. 708 . 9!.:2~~
~~ United States
'l Department of
Agriculture
Agricultural
Research
Service
1882(3)
Family Economics
Review For Bui1di lJ u~~ O~i:Y )
Special Issue:
Household Production
Farm Women's Tasks
Married Women's Workload
Measurements for the GNP
Dual Careers
New Research Methods
PPOPdUY 0.- THE
LIBRARY
I JUN 151982
Univer:ity of 1ort!l Carolina
ut Green .. boro
Family Economics
Review
Editors
Kathleen K. Scholl
Katherine S. Tippett
Managing Editor
Sherry Lowe
Editorial Assistant
Nancy J. Bailey
Family Economics Review is published each
quarter by the Family Economics Research
Group, Agricultural Research Service,
United States Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C. ·
Family Economics Review reports on
research relating to economic aspects of
family living. It is prepared primarily for
home economics agents and home economics
specialists of the Cooperative Extension
Service.
Contents may be reprinted without
permission, but credit to Family Economics
Review would be appreciated.
Family Economics Research Group
Agricultural Research Service
Federal Building, Room 442A
Hyattsville, Md. 20782
Telephone: ( 301) 436-8461
2/family Economics Review/1982(3)
Through the years Family Economics Review has brought to its readers information on
various topics of family resource allocation, management, and use. In this issue we focus
on the family as a producer of goods and services.
During the past several years, home economists and economists have rediscovered the
enormous contributions that families make to themselves, and to the economy as a whole,
through their productive efforts in the home. Home production contributes to the eco­nomic
stability and security of families by helping to moderate the effects of changes in
the market.
This special issue was compiled to give our readers information on current research
in household production. One article, written in 1929 by a home economist in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, was included in the issue to provide an insight into the long
term importance of household production. Other articles provide information from recent
data sources. Highlights are included on various methods of studying work in the home
and on time-use data used in household production research. The CRIS report in this
issue provides information on the regional research project on the use of time by rural
and urban households. This recent data collection will be used by State researchers for
future studies in household production.
Household and Farm Task
Participation of Women
By Kathleen K. Scholl
Consumer economist
The labor of farm women was first studied
at the turn of the century. When the stren­uous
work performed by farm women became
apparent, the initial time-use studies turned
to work simplification research. Easier meth­ods
were developed for the work performed
in the home and on the farm. For example,
basic principles of leverage and proper
lifting of heavy loads, whether tubs of wet
laundry or bales of hay, were promoted in
educational programs for farm women.
Mechanization of farm and household tasks
and attempts to shorten time spent in chores
led to research in time management <!) •
From the twenties through the sixties, time­use
studies were conducted to examine the
farm women's allocation of time between
farm and household tasks.
In the fifties, time studies using time
diaries became expensive to collect.
Research on farm women's labor turned to
studies of task involvement and the divi­sion
of labor between husband and wife on
household and farm tasks.1 In the first
such study, tasks were classified as shared
or individual. More recent studies, includ­ing
the 1980 National Farm Women · Survey,
focused on the frequency, rather than the
sharing, of tasks on the farm and in the
farm home • .
Farm Women Studies
Early time-use studies showed that most
farm women performed farmwork as well as
household work. A study in Oregon in 1926-
27 (13) indicated that approximately 18
per~t of the homemaker's work time was
spent in farmwork (table 1). The farm home­maker
spent most of her time in homemaking
work and a small proportion in gainful em­ployment.
Activities associated with dairy,
1Several States participated in the cur­rent
NE-113 Regional Project, Use of Time
in Rural and Urban Families (see "Current
Research Reports" on p. 36). This time-use
study in 1977-78 used time diaries. The
study, however, did not contain an adequate
number of farm families for analysis nor
were the tasks divided in sufficient detail
to study farm task participation.
1982(,)/Family Economics Review/'
poultry, and fruits and vegetables account­ed
for 85 percent of the farmwork done by
women. Farm homemakers generally worked
longer hours than nonfarm homemakers
because this farmwork was in addition to
their household work.
In a study of New York farm families in
1936 (~_), 11 percent of women's work time
was devoted to farmwork, 86 percent in
household work, and 3 percent in other
work. 2 The homemakers did more farm and
other work in summer and fall than in win­ter
and spring. The total workday of the
farm homemaker, however, did not vary with
the seasons; less time was spent on home­making
activities in order to do the other
work. Homemakers tended to spend less time
in household work if they were active in the
community, did a great deal of farmwork, or
were gainfully employed.
2 The New York definition of "other work"
included time spent in gainful employment,
but also included time spent in activities
such as gardening. This may account for
some of the differences between the studies.
A few time-use studies examined differ­ences
among rural, urban, and farm home­makers.
The results of these studies varied
some research (~_) indicates that farm home­makers
spent more time in household work
than other types of homemakers; other
research (~) indicates no difference other
than the time farm homemakers spent in
farmwork.
Studies in the fifties examined the divi­sion
of labor in city and farm families. A
Michigan study (_!) found that farm women
performed a larger share of household tasks
than city women, but this finding was not
confirmed in a later study of Iowa farm,
rural nonfarm, and city families (!).
Data were collected in 1962 from Wiscon­sin
farm families concerning farm- and
household-task participation. In general,
the husband did fieldwork tasks, and the
wife did most of the domestic and financial
tasks. Barn chores and household mainte­nance
tasks were shared by both spouses
(.:!_, _!!). Wisconsin farm families, in a 1979
survey (!Q_, .!!_), showed a similar division
of labor, although an increase in the range
Table 1. Work time of farm homemakers in Oregon and New York
Work time
HOmemakers reporting fannwork ••••••••••
Time used in total work •••••••••••••••••
Hanenaking ...........................
Famwork .•••......•...• , .••..••..••..
Other "WOrk •••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1 Years of data collection.
Oregon
1926-27 1
Hours Percent
63.8
51.6
11.3
2 o. 9
97.0
100.0
80.9
17.7
1.4
New York
Hours
60.7
51.9
6.8
3 2. 0
1926 1
Percent
79.0
100.0
85.5
11.2
3.3
2 lncludes gainful employment of the homemaker and time she spent assisting with the work
of others for which they receive pay.
3 Includes time spent in gainful occupation and activities such as gardening and pet care.
Sources: Warren, Jean, 1940, Use of Time in Its Relation to Home Management, Bulletin 734,
Laboratories in Home Economics, Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Ithaca,
N.Y. Wilson, Maud, 1929, Use of Time by Oregon Farm Homemakers, Oregon Agricultural
Experiment Station Bulletin No. 256, Oregon State Agriculture College, Corvallis, Oreg.
•I family Economics Review I 19820)
of the wife's tasks was not matched by the
husband's involvement in additional house­hold
tasks. Wives on diary farms contribut­ed
more in farmwork than wives on nondairy
farms, especially on small farms. Off-farm
employment of the husband increased the
need for the wife's involvement on the
farm. When the wife was employed off the
farm, she decreased her farm chores and
fieldwork; off-farm employment, however,
did not change her responsibility for
keeping the farm reoords. Wives were more
deeply involved in farm tasks during early
stages of the family life cycle than in the
later stages.
In a 1980 Florida study Cl), farm women
were asked to recall the major tasks per­formed
throughout the year. Although this
method is less accurate than the time-use
diary method, the study provides recent in­formation
on the task participation of farm
women. The work contributed by farm women
complemented, rather than competed with,
the work of farm men. Farm men did the
strenuous farm tasks, while women did farm
tasks that require physical dexterity,
patience, stamina, and nurturing. Farm men
did the tractor work, cared for and market­ed
crops. and livestock, and did farm repair
work. Farm women kept records, cared for
crops and animals, and ran errands.
The U.s. Department of Agriculture con­ducted
the 1980 National Farm Women Survey
(~) which measured the frequency of parti­cipation
of women in both farm and house­hold
tasks. (See abstract on p. 9 for a
more detailed description.) Until 1980, no
data of any kind had been collected on a
national level.
The 1980 National Farm Women Survey
indicated that, in all farm operations
sizes, women were actively involved in farm
tasks and management of the farming enter­prise.
The involvement of women on the farm
was so extensive that 55 percent of the
women considered themselves main operators
of their farms; almost 60 percent of the
married women reported that they could run
the operation without their husbands.
The proportion of farm women performing a
task depended on the nature of the task and
whether the task was done on the farm oper­ation
(table 2). As a regular duty, women
reported doing household tasks, taking care
of a vegetable garden or animals for the
fat:nily's food consumption, looking after
children, keeping financial records, and
running farm errands. Half or more of the
farm women reported that they occasionally
cared for farm animals, harvested crops or
other products--including the operation of
machinery or trucks--, and supervised the
farmwork of other family members.
The data indicated differences by region,
age, and marital status of the farm woman.
Farm women in the South were likely to re­port
doing fewer far·m tasks than women in
other regions. Although 96 percent of the
women were married, women who were not
married at the time of the interview were
involved in a greater range of farm tasks
than were women who were married.
Farm women increased their farm involve­ment
during childbearing and child­development
years and reduced their farm
involvement over the years when their
children were grown. Usually one or more
of three basic reasons are given for the
relationship between woman's age and farm
task participation: (1) Young women have
more strength and are physically able to do
more work than older women; (2) as children
grow and mature, they take over farm tasks
of the woman; and (3) resource inputs are
needed at the early stages of economic
development of both the farm and family-­the
woman, realizing that the farm unit
supports and provides economic wealth for
the family, contributes labor to farm tasks
to make the farm a profitable and viable
economic unit. Any or all of those three
reasons could account for the women's
gradual decrease in farm task participation
after midlife. Men's farm task involvement,
however, would be expected to parallel
women's if only reasons (1) and (2) were
true. Perhaps on beginning farm operations,
both spouses realize that high debt and the
lack of working capital require the in­volvement
of the woman in the farm tasks
until cash flow is sufficient for hiring
additional labor, or until the farm man
becomes more experienced.
1982(3) /Family Economics Review/5
Table 2. Women's involvement in farm and household tasks, 1980
Tasks
Fann
Plowing, disking, cultivating,
or planting .•.......•...........•..
Applying fertilizers, herbicides,
or insecticides •••••!••••••••••••••
Doing other fieldwork without
machinery ................•.••....••
Harvesting crops or other
products, including running
machinery or trucks ••••••••••••••••
Taking care of fann animals,
including herding or milking
dairy cattle •••••••••••••••••••••••
Running fann errands, such as
picking up repair parts or
suppl ies ..•.........•........•.....
Making major purchases of faxm
or ranch supplies and equipment ••••
Marketing fann products--that is,
dealing with wholesale buyers or
selling directly to consumers •••
Bookkeeping, maintaining records,
paying bills, or preparing tax
fonns for the operation ••••••••••••
Supervising the farnwork of
other family members •••••••••••••••
Supervising the work of hired
f al'Jll 1 aOOr •••••••••••••••••••••••••
Household
Taking care of a vegetable garden
or animals for family consumption
Doing household tasks like preparing
meals, housecleaning •••••••••••••••
Looking after children ••••••••••••••
Working on a family or income
business other than fann or
ranch work •••••••••••••••••••••••••
Regular Occasionally Never
duty
11
5
17
22
37
47
14
15
61
24
11
74
97
74
34
26
12
25
29
29
38
23
18
17
26
25
14
2
13
13
Percent
63
83
58
49
34
15
63
67
22
50
64
12
1
13
53
Total
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
2,257
2,377
2,281
2,351
1,944
2,483
2,455
2,380
2,489
2,060
1,643
2,350
2,499
1,846
1,139
1 All respondents (2, 509) are not included. Respondents who reported that a particular task
was not done on the farm operation or for their household were excluded.
Source: Jones, Calvin, and Rachel A. Rosenfeld, 1981, American Farm Women: Findings
From a National Survey, NORC Report No. 130, p. 18, National Opinion Center, Chicago, Ill.
6/Family Economics Review/1982(3)
What Farm Women Are Doing
Generalizations about the task participa­tion
of farm women are limited because of
the lack of replication among the studies
of farm women and the incompatible geo­graphic
areas surveyed. The studies, how­ever,
can be examined for trends and
similarities.
Farm women produce large quantities of
food for their families. Household produc­tion
in the form of raising vegetables and
livestock for family consumption was
reported in the 1980 National Farm Women
Survey as a regular task by 74 percent of
the women and as an occasional task by 14
percent. In the 1979 Wisconsin survey <.!Q),
84 percent of the families reported pro­ducing
meat and 92 percent producing
vegetables for family consumption. In the
Florida survey <!), families produced an
average of 64 percent of their meat and 78
percent of their vegetables.
Keeping financial accounts for the farm
operations is a main farm task of women on
the farm; more than three-fourths of the
women in the 1980 National Farm Women
Survey reported bookkeeping as a regular or
occasional task. Data from the two Wiscon­sin
surveys indicated that between 1962 and
1979 farm women became more highly involved
in keeping farm records. Differences among
surveys in methods of data collection pre­vent
the determination of whether this
trend continued in 1980.
Running errands is an important task for
a farm operation, especially during harvest
and planting seasons. When machinery
breaks, the function usually must continue
while a replacement is sought. The farm
woman, who is located in or near the pro­duction
unit, is usually able to run the
errand, which often requires the retrival
of manuals, warranties, and other printed
materials from the files. Also, the farm
woman must have sufficient technical and
mechanical expertise to return with the
correct replacement part, especially in
isolated rural areas. The task of "running
and fetching" must be considerable since 85
percent of the women in the 1980 National
Farm Women Survey reported this as a
regular or occasional duty.
Findings from the Wisconsin surveys indi­cated
that a few more wives did fieldwork
in 1979 than in 1962. That trend also is
evident in the 1980 National Farm Women
Survey; physical labor was reported by many
women. Slightly over 10 percent of the farm
women reported plowing, disking, culti­vating,
or planting as a regular duty;
5 percent reported applying fertilizers,
herbicides, or insecticides as a regular
duty; and 17 percent reported that they
regularly did fieldwork without machinery.
The percentages of women almost doubled in
these categories for 1980 when asked if
they occasionally helped with the fieldwork
tasks.
Farm women are heavily involved on farm
enterprises with livestock. In livestock
operations, women utilize their skills in
caring for animals. Often this ranges from
caring for flocks of chickens and herds of
goats to tending large drylots of cattle.
The appearance of special programs, such as
farrowing courses for women, indicates the
recognition of women's nurturing skills. In
the Florida study (!). more women than men
reported caring for animals. In the 1980
National Farm Women Survey, two-thirds of
the farm women reported that caring for
farm animals was either a regular or an
occasional task.
Little information is available on the
involvement of women in direct marketing of
farm produce. Only a third of the farm wo­men
in the 1980 National Farm Women Survey
reported that they marketed their farm pro­ducts.
This task category included both
wholesale and retail marketing and was not
analyzed separately for fruit and vegetable
enterprises that often sell their produce
directly to the consumers. Possibly women
may be operating these fruit stands and
"pick-your-own" operations; the data, how­ever,
do not contain sufficient detail to
confirm or deny the involvement of women.
1982())/Family Economics Review/7
Implications
Farm women are involved in their family's
farming operations through labor participa­tion
and make an economic contribution to
both the farm unit and the family unit.
Although the major responsibility of the
woman is caring for the home and children,
her farmwork is supportive of the farm unit
since she is occasionally involved in almost
half the farm tasks.
Results from all the studies of task par­ticipation
of farm women indicate that
those women need specialized instruction
and information to improve the quality of
farm life. Because half the farm women
supervise the farmwork of other family
members, they need not only broad, general
agricultural information but also need
knowledge of specific techniques.
Educational programs for farm women
should be offered at times when they can
attend, and with services provided to free
them of other responsibilities. Child care
services might be essential for the parti­cipation
of young farm women. Offering pro­grams
at times that do not conflict with
off-farm employment of women might also be
important. In local areas, seasonal off-farm
employment could conflict with the
times known as "slack or slow" farming
periods, when many programs usually are
given.
According to data from the 1980 National
Farm Women Survey, farm men often are una­ware
of the degree of involvement of women
in tractor and mechanical operation. Their
unawareness could result in physical injury
to the woman or damage to the machinery if
she has not been properly instructed in its
operation. Classes in tractor maintenance
should be offered to the farm woman. The
most basic instruction of the mechanical
functions of farm implements would be help­ful
because the farm woman runs errands for
various mechanical parts. Also, farm safety
classes should include farm women because
the farm operation is their work environ­ment,
and the chance of injury may increase
as women operate farm implements that are
not designed for their physical stature and
capabilites.
Traditionally, management classes have
been presented separately for the farm and
home units. Farm women should be invited
8 /f a mil y Economics Review / 1982(3)
and included in farm management programs
with special emphasis on coordinating work
between the home and farm. Other financial
management information needed by farm
women includes accounting, electronic record
keeping, tax form preparation, and joint
ownership property laws.
Research is needed on work simplification
of farm tasks that women perform on a
regular basis. For example, high-labor
enterprises, such as dairy farms, often
depend on farm women's labor. Dairy farms
have tasks that are 'repetitious and would be
excellent targets for work-simplification
.research.
Farm women should be encouraged to
participate in horticulture programs. Their
work encompasses tasks beyond the food
preservation activities normally associated
with the farm woman. Women plan, plant,
cultivate, harvest, and preserve vegeta­bles,
small fruits, and tree fruits for
food. Farm women need information on
selection of planting site, soil analysis,
control of weeds and pests, and use of
plant residues.
Farm women have been receptive to animal
husbandry courses designed to capitalize on
the skills o..f women. Program-planning
committees should identify the need for
similar local programs for farm women.
Special courses could go beyond calving and
farrowing to the general health care and
maintenance of livestock.
Is the farm woman, perhaps, an agricul­tural
resource that has been neither fully
recognized nor fully developed? The 1980
National Farm Women Survey has documented
her contributions to agriculture and to
family life. On the results of that survey,
program-planning committees could base a
dynamic program that would meet the
expanded educational needs of the modern
farm woman. The personal benefits from
such programs may include an enriched farm
life and enhanced contribution to the indi­vidual
farm operation. If the full potential
of all farm women was reached, farm
families, farm operations, and U.s.
agriculture would benefit.
LITERATURE CITED
1. Blood, Robert 0., Jr. 1958. The divi­sion
of labor in city and farm families.
Marriage and Family Living 20 (2):
170-174.
2. Burchinal, Lee G., and Ward W. Bauder.
1965. Decision-making and role pattern
among Iowa farm and non~arm families.
Journal of Marriage and the Family.
27(4):525-530.
3. Downie, Masuma, and Christina H.
Gladwin. 1981. Florida Farm Wives:
They Help the Family Farm Survive.
Food and Resource Economics
Department, Institute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences, University of
Florida, Gainesville.
4. Jones, Calvin, and Rachel A. Rosenfeld.
1981. American Farm Women: Findings
from a National Survey. NORC Report
No. 130. National Opinion Research
Center, Chicago, Ill.
5. Kneeland, Hildegarde. 1932. Leisure of
home makers studied for light on stand­ards
of living. Yearbook of Agriculture.
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
6. Manning, Sarah L. 1968. Time Use in
Household Tasks by Indiana Families.
Research Bulletin No. 837. Purdue
University, Agricultural Experiment
Station, Lafayette, Ind.
7. Smith, Herbert L. 1969. Husband-wife
task performance and decision-making
patterns. In J. Ross Eshleman, editor
Perspectiv;; in Marriage and the Family.
Allyn and Bacon Inc., Boston, Mass.
8. Walker, Kathryn E., and Margaret E.
Woods. 1976. Time Use: A Measure of
Household Production of Family Goods
and Services. Center for the Family,
American Home Economics Association,
Washington, D.C.
9. Warren, Jean. 1940. Use of Time in Its
Relation to Home Management. Bulletin
734. Laboratories in Home Economics,
Cornell University, Agricultural
Experiment Station, Ithaca, N.Y.
10. Wilkening, Eugene A. 1981. Work Roles,
Decision-Making and Satisfactions of
Farm Husbands and Wives in Wisconsin
1962 and 1979. Research Report R 3147,
Research Division, College of Agricul-tural
and Life Sciences, University of
Wisconsin, Madison.
11. and Nancy Ahrens. 1979.
Involvement of wives in farm tasks as
related to characteristics of the farm
the family and work off the farm.
Paper presented at the Rural Socio­logical
Society Meetings. [Burlington,
Vt., August 1979.]
12. and Lakshmi K. Bharadwaj.
1966. Aspirations, Work Roles, and
Decision-Making Patterns of Farm
Husbands and Wives in Wisconsin.
Research Bulletin 266. University of
Wisconsin, Madison.
13. Wilson, Maud. 1929. Use of Time by
Oregon Farm Homemakers. Oregon Agri­cultural
Experiment Station Bulletin
No. 256. Oregon State Agriculture
College, Corvallis.
Survey of American
Farm Women
Interviews in 1980 with over 2, 500 farm
women and ov~::r 550 farm men (mostly hus­bands)
comprise the most extensive effort
undertaken by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) to study farm women
on a national level. Data were collected on
several dimensions of farm women's involve­ment
in their own farming operations,
including their participation in farmwork,
decision-making responsibilities, member­ships
in agricultural organizations, and a
variety of personal attitudes and beliefs
about their roles as farm women. Data . were
also collected on farm women's involvement
with USDA programs and the agencies that
administer them. In the survey, open-ended
questions were asked regarding what the
USDA could do to help farm and ranch
people, specifically farm women.
The farm women in the survey had spent
an average of two-thirds of their lives
working or living on farms. Almost half the
women (on operations where the specific
tasks were done) regularly do the bookkeep­ing,
raise food for the family, and run
1982(3)/Family Economics Review/9
farm errands. A sizable proportion of the
women are at least occasionally involved
with other types of farm tasks, including
fieldwork. Farm women are, involved in a
range of farming decisions, but rarely make
these decisions alone. Almost half the women
belong to at least one agricultural organi­zation.
One-third are employed off the farm,
with one-fourth of them reporting that they
work to provide money for the farm. Farm
women are quite satisfied with farming as a
way of life and with the communities where
they live. The women are not satisfied with
farming as a way to make a living.
Analysis of the USDA data on program
participation indicated that farm women are
substantially less involved in farm pro­grams
than are male farm operators. With
few exceptions, proportionately fewer women
than men reported being familiar with and
knowledgeable about programs and being
personally involved in the application
processes or business dealings with the
agencies. The reasons farm women gave for
this difference failed to demonstrate that
women perceived themselves as victims of
unfair or unequal treatment on the basis of
their sex from USDA personnel. Rather, the
farm women's program involvement was
influenced by their husbands' participation
in the USDA programs and women's own
participation in the work and management of
their farming operations.
Economic issues, especially price levels
for farm commodities, were by far the most
commonly cited problems by both men and
women with which USDA could help farm and
ranch people. When asked what USDA could
do for farm women, over one-third of the
women did not have a response. Of those
women who did answer, changing inheritance
laws and estate taxes ranked the highest,
followed by improving or providing educa­tional
•a nd informational programs for
women, helping women by helping their hus-bands,
and providing wider recognition of
farm women's roles, especially their
economic contributions.
Source: Jones, Calvin, and Rachel A.
Rosenfeld, 1981, American Farm Women:
Findings from a National Survey, National
Opinion Research Center, Chicago, 111.
10/Family Economics Review/1982(J)
Workload of Married Women
By Colien Hefferan
Economist
Many aspects of women's roles have
changed dramatically during the past 50
years. Today there are more working wives
than full-time homemakers. Many women are
entering jobs previously held only by men.
Women are electing to have fewer children
and, in some cases, delaying the birth of
their first child. Labor-saving devices,
convenience foods, and other technological
innovations are widely available to aid
women in the tasks associated with home­making.
Perhaps most importantly, a large
and growing segment of society professes
values that are reflected in an egalitarian
division of responsibilities in the horne.
These changes in women's roles have sig­nificantly
altered the way married women
divide their working hours between catego­ries
of household work and between unpaid
household work and paid employment.
Despite these changes, married women, on
average, continue to work about the same
total hours per week as married women have
worked for more than 50 years. In some
cases, however, such as the full-time em­ployed
mother of young children, the total
hours worked may be considerably above
average. What factors influence the amount
of time married women devote to different
types of work? How do the workloads of
today's married women affect the economic
status of their families?
Historical Overview
Between 1929 and 1966, the time nonem­ployed
married women devoted to household
work remained remarkably stable--about 52
to 56 hours per week (1_, .!!_). During that
period, however, there was a shift in
household time use toward more time in
managerial and family-care activities and
less time in food preparation and cleanup
and in other housecleaning activities.
The shift away from physical houseclean­ing
activities continued into the seventies
(~_). Time spent in dishwashing and clothing
care decreased significantly, while time
spent in shopping, management, and
nonphysical family care increased.
Household time studies in the ·seventies
marked the first significant downturn in
the amount of time married women spent in
household work (.!,, ~). In 1975, nonemployed
married women spent an average of 44 hours
per week in household work, and employed
married women spent about one-half as much
time (1). The decrease in household work
time for nonemployed, as well as employed,
married women, suggests that factors such
as changing family composition, work
patterns of other family members, household
technology, and personal standards influ­enced
time spent in household work; how­ever,
there is not sufficient research to
support that hypothesis. Most of the
general downward trend in household pro­duction
time has been attributed to the
increasing number of married women working
for pay.
Married women's participation in the paid
labor force has increased dramatically.
Fifty years ago only one in eight married
women was gainfully employed. Today more
than one-half of all married women work for
pay; three-fifths of those 16 to 44 years
of age are employed (see table 1). The
labor force participation rates of married
women with children under 18 have also in­creased
rapidly. In March 1980, 62 percent
of all married women whose youngest child
was 6 to 17 years old and 45 percent of
those whose youngest child was under age 6,
were working. Overall, the labor force
participation rate of married women with
children under 18 was 54 percent in 1980,
compared with 28 percent in 1960. Partici­pation
rates for married mothers of child­bearing
age (16 to 44 years) were slightly
higher.
Table 1. Labor force participation rates of all married women and those of childbearing
age, by presence and age of children, March 1960, 1970, and 1980
Married wanen
16 years and over, total ••••••••••••••••••
No children under 18 years ••••••••••••••
With children under 18 years:
Total •..•............•.. · · · • · · · · • • • • • •
Youngest 6 to 17 years ••••••••••••••••
Youngest under 6 years ••••••••••••••••
16 to 44 years, total •••••••••• • • • • • • • • • • •
No children under 18 years ••••••••••••••
With children under 18 years:
Tot a 1 •••••••••••••• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Youngest 6 to 17 years ••••••••••••••••
Youngest under 6 years ••••••••••••••••
1 Not available.
1960
30.5
34.7
27.6
39.0
18.6
31.6
58.4
(1)
40.3
(1)
1970
40.8
42.2
39.7
49.2
30.3
43.7
66.6
38.6
51.0
30.4
1980
50.2
46.1
54.2
61.8
44.9
60.3
78.8
54.8
64.9
45.0
Source: U.s. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1981, Po_p ulation Profile of
The United States, P-20, No. 363.
19820)/family Economics Review/11
An increasing proportion of employed
married women work in full-time jobs. Today
about 71 percent of all employed married
women work fulltime, compared with 66
percent in 1960 (~, _!!_). 1 Despite this
increase in full-time work, married women
workers are still more likely to hold a
part-time job than are women workers in
general, and more than six times as many
are likely to work part time as are married
men. Estimates of the weekly hours of work
for all employed married women indicate
that they work about 34 hours per week.
Married women working part time average
slightly less than 20 hours per week in
paid employment, and married women working
full time spend slightly more than 39 hours
per week in paid employment (_!!_).
The total workload of married women is
comprised not only of unpaid household work
and paid employment, but also of volunteer
work, commuting, and certain required work
breaks. Surveys conducted by the Institute
for Social Research at the University of
Michigan indicate that the time married
women devoted to all work activities com­bined
dropped from 57 to 50 hours per week
between 1965 and 1975 (3). This overall
decline in total workload was the result of
reported declines in the hours of both
household work and paid employment, as
well as minor changes in other work
activities. 2
The workload of married women apparently
declined more dramatically than that of
married men, resulting in a convergence of
the total workloads of married men and
women (i). For example, employed, married
women, who historically have consistently
1 Full-time workers are persons who
usually work 35 or more hours per week.
2Separate estimates of time used in
unpaid household work and paid employment
may not add up to agree with survey esti­mates
of the total amount of time used in
all productive work. The methods used to
collect data vary slightly among the
sources, and the definition of total
workload is more inclusive than unpaid
household work and paid employment
combined.
12/family Economics Review/19820)
reported the most hours of work of all
family members, significantly reduced their
total work time from 67 hours per week in
1965 to 55 hours in 1975. In 1965, em­ployed
married women worked 7 hours more
per week than men. In 1975, employed,
married men worked 2 hours more per week
than women.
Results of the Michigan surveys indicate
that the total workload of married women
has changed over time but also suggest that
at any one time, married women's workloads
widely differ. In both 1965 and 1975,
estimates of the total workload of married
women varied considerably by women's em­ployment
status and family characteristics.
Factors Influencing Workloads
The single most important factor influ­encing
married women's workloads is employ­ment
status. Averages indicating the total
number of hours married women work in
unpaid household work, paid employment,
volunteer work, commuting, and work breaks,
conceal a great deal of variation among
full-time, part-time, and nonemployed
women. In 1975, the total workload of
full-time employed, married woman was 64
hours per week, compared with 53 hours for
part-time workers, and 45 hours for those
not employed. Although all groups of mar­ried
women have slightly reduced their
workloads over time, full-time employed
wives continue to carry the heaviest total
workload of all family members.
The prospects for sustaining a heavy
workload over a long period of time are
great for some employed, married women.
Women in professional and managerial posi­tions,
who have heavily invested in educa­tion
and training, are more likely to stay
in the labor market than are women in other
occupations. Even when there are young
children in the home, these women are like­ly
to work. As more married women enter
these occupations, their total workload
probably will remain heavy. 3
The amount of time married women spend
in unpaid household labor, as well as their
likelihood of participating in the paid labor
force, is strongly related to the age of
the youngest child and the number of child­ren
in the household (_!!, .!_:!_). Among
families in which the youngest .child is
less than 1 year of age, nonemployed home­makers
spend as much as 70 hours per week
in unpaid household work. In families in
which the youngest child is 12 to 17 years
of age, nonemployed homemakers spend less
than 50 hours per week in household work.
Even in households with working mothers,
the time spent in household work remains
high in families with very young children,
averaging as many as 50 hours per week.
Number of children has a greater impact
on hours of household work than age of
children. Married women with one or two
children spend significantly less time in
household work than women with three or
more children. Declining family size could
result in a decreased household workload
for married women. Analysis of the Michigan
surveys, however, shows that although the
birthrate dropped sharply between 1965 and
1975, the time spent in child care decreased
little, suggesting that, on a per child
basis, child-care activities increased
during the decade (3).
Results of the Michigan surveys, coupled
with the increased labor force participation
rates of married women of childbearing age,
indicate that many married women may be
responding to smalier family size by in­creasing
the amount of time they spend with
each child or increasing paid employment,
3There is evidence that the occupational
distribution of women has shifted over the
past 3 decades. In 1978, about 22 percent
of employed women held professional and
managerial jobs, compared with 17 percent
in 1950. A drop in the percent of women who
work in private household service has been
offset by an increase in the percent who
hold other service jobs. The largest single
category in which women are employed con­tinues
to be clerical, accounting for more
than one-third of all women's jobs (!Q_) •
or both. These actions act to maintain, and
sometimes lengthen, the workweek of married
women with children.
The workload of married women is affected
by the amount of work other family members
do in the home and, to some extent, by the
labor force activities of other family mem­bers.
Spouses tend to spend 1. 5 to 2 hours
per day in household work, compared with
married women's 6 to 8 hours Ci, .!_:!_). In
large families and in families with young
children, spouses devote slightly more time
to household work. In families with teen­agers,
children contribute about 2 hours
per day to household work. There is little
evidence that spouses and other family
members have significantly increased their
participation in household work during the
past decade.
Researchers have focused a great deal of
attention on the relationship of household
technology and standards of maintenance to
the workload of married women. The hypoth­esis
that advancing technology has reduced
the workload of married women is supported
only in the area of laundry (_!, i). Inno­vation
may result in more efficient and less
time-consuming production in some aspects
of household work, but the net result
apparently is a shift to nontechnological
activities, such as child care, and increased
standards of performance for household
work, such as cleaner clothes.
Economic Contributions of
Married Women's Work
Married women contribute about 70 percent
of all the economic ~ alue of household work
performed in their families. 4 Those contri­butions
vary according to the employment
status of the homemaker, the number of
children in the household, and the age of
the youngest child. The percent contribu­tion
of married women in different family
4 Weighted average of estimates is presented
in table 2.
1982(3) /family Economics Review/H
...
~
.....,...
Ill
.3.. ..
......
'<
M
n
0
:J
0
3... ..
n
Ill
;o
~
<.... .
co
~
..........
\0
tD
,N.. .
"'
Table 2. Married women's share of the dollar value of all household work done in families, by age,1 number of children,
and employment status
Age
(years)
Wife with no children:
25 •••••.••••••.••••••
25-39 ••••..••..••••••
40-54 ••••••••••••....
55 and older •••••••••
Wife with children:
1 child, 12-17 •••••••
2 children, youngest--
12-17 ••••••••••.••.
6-11 •••••••••••.•••
2-5 ••••...•........
3 children, youngest--
12-17 ••••••••..••..
6-11 ••.•.••••••••••
2-5 ............... .
1 ••.•.•..••.•.••.•.
Percent contribution
Employed wife Nonemployed wife
72
72
84
80
64
67
70
68
61
70
(2)
(2)
86
83
80
73
71
75
68
78
79
73
79
76
1Some age groups omitted because sample size was 0.
2 Sample size fewer than 4 cases.
Percent contribution
Age
(years) Employed wife Nonemployed wife
Wife with children:
4 children, youngest--
12-17 ••.......•...•
6-11 •••••••••••••••
2-5
1
................................
5-6 children, youngest--
12-17 ••••••••••••••
6-11 •..............
2-5 .......••.......
1 ••••••••.•••••••••
less than 1
7-9 children, youngest--
6-11 •••••••••••••••
2-5 •.•.••••.•...•••
71
74
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)
86
78
79
78
(2)
72
80
(2)
79
(2)
73
Source: Calculated from estimates in Gauger, William H., and Kathryn E. Walker, 1980, The Dollar Value of Household
Work, Information Bulletin 60, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
types is shown in table 2. Nonemployed
married women generate about three-fourths
of the economic value of household work in
their families, and employed married women
generate about two-thirds of this nonmoney
income.
Working wives contribute, on average,
about 26 percent of family mon.ey income.
Those who work full time, 12 months per
year, contribute 40 percent of family in­come;
part-year, full-time workers contri­bute
about 30 percent. Part-time women
workers contribute 11 percent of family
income (12).
The economic status of families is greatly
enhanced by multiple earners. Multiearner
families enjoy incomes that are about 40
percent higher than incomes of single­earner
families and experience a very low
incidence of poverty (12). Families with
two earners are betterprotected from the
risks of unemployment than are single-earner
families and are more likely to enjoy a wide
array of work-related benefits. Researchers
have demonstrated that although two-earner
families have some added expenses, the
adequacy of their income is greatly enhanced
by the work effort of second earners (_!).
The workload of married women produces
major economic contributions to their fami­lies
both in nonmoney and money income and
in enhanced economic security. A growing
number of married women may be providing
more than one- half of total family income
through their contributions to unpaid
household work and their market earnings.
LITERATURE CITED
1. Hill, Martha S. [forthcoming]
Patterns of time use. In Juster F •
Thomas and Frank P. Stafford, editors.
Time Use in American Households.
Institute for Social Research,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
2. Metzen, Edward J., and Sandra A.
Helmick. 1975. Secondary workers' earn­ings
and their impact on family income
adequacy. Home Economics Research
Journal 3(4):249-259.
3. Robinson, John P. 1977. Changes in
American's Use of Time: 1965-1975, A
Progress Report. Communication
Research Center, Cleveland State
University, Cleveland, Ohio.
4. 1980. Household technology
and household work. In Sarah F. Berk,
editor. Women and Household Labor.
Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif.
5. Sanik, Margaret. 1981. Division of
household work: A decade comparison--
1967-1977. Home Economics Research
Journal 10(2):175-180.
6. Stafford, Frank P. 1980. Women's use
of time converging with men's. Monthly
Labor Review 103(12):57-59.
7. Vanek, Joanne. 1974. Time spent in
housework. Scientific American 23(5):
116-120.
8. U.s. Department of Agriculture,
Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home
Economics. 1944. The time costs of
homemaking--A study of 1, 500 rural
and urban homemakers. [Mimeo.] 10 pp.
9. U.s. Department of Labor, Bureau of
Labor Statistics. 1960. Growth and
characteristics of the part-time work
force. Special Labor Force Report 10.
10. 1979. Women in the labor
force: Some new data series. Report
575.
11. 1981. Employment and
Earnings 28(12): 9-27.
12. 1981. Marital and family
characteristics of the labor force,
March 1979. Special Labor Force
Report 237.
13. Walker, Kathryn E., and Margaret E.
Woods. 1976. Time Use: A Measure of
Household Production of Family Goods
and Services. American Home Economics
Association, Washington, D. C.
1982(3)/family Economics Review/15
Measuring Household Production
for the GNP1
By Janice Peskin
Principal analyst
Congressional Budget Office
Washington, D.C.
For many women, homemaking is their full­time
job and lifetime occupation. For many
other women and men with paid jobs in the
marketplace, work in the home absorbs many
hours a week. Official government statistics,
however, recognize neither homemakers as
"workers" nor the value of unpaid work in
the home as a component of national
production.
In mid-1978, the Bureau of Economic Anal­ysis
(BEA), U.S. Department of Commerce,
initiated a program for the measurement of
nonmarket activities, such as household
work and the services that are provided by
consumer durables. Those measurements
should provide users of the Gross National
Product (GNP) statistics with the infor­mation
they need to formulate alternative
estimates of national income and produc­tion.
Although that work at BEA has been
phased out, the preliminary estimates of
the dollar value of household work have
been completed and are presented in this
paper.
MEASUREMENT OF THE VALUE OF
HOUSEHOLD WORK
The preliminary estimates of the dollar
value of household work developed at BEA
are the product of reported hours of house­hold
work and a value per hour. Reported
hours are based on a survey of time use of
U.S. households conducted in 1975-76 by
the Survey Research Center (SRC) of the
University of Michigan (~_).
1This article is condensed from a paper
presented at the Agricultural Outlook
Conference in November 1981 at Washington,
D.C. Complete copies are available from the
Family Economics Research Group (see p. 2
for address).
16 /family Econ om ics Re vi ew / 1982(J)
Reporting and defining hours. In the
SRC survey, respondents reported, in diary
format, the time spent in different activi­ties
during the previous day. Estimates
presented here are based on data for the
synthetic2 week for the 1, 391 respondents
and spouses for whom data were complete.
For calculation of aggregate hours and
values, average hours from the survey were
multiplied by the number of women and men
18 years of age or older in the civilian,
noninstitutional population.
From the many uses of time (activities)
reported in the SRC survey, household wbrk
activities were isolated by two criteria:
(1) Activities that result in the production
of a good or service that could be pur­chased
in the market: and (2) activities
that could be accomplished by a "third
person" with no diminution of their "final
utility" to household members.
The definition of household work used by
BEA is similar to that used in the 1977-78
time-use study (NE-113) funded by the U.s.
Department of Agriculture (_!). (For infor­mation
on NE-113, see "Current Research
Projects," p. 36). In its definition of
household work, however, BEA included
(1) time spent in hobbies (e. g., woodwork­ing)
that produce goods and (2) time spent
in volunteer work. 3 The SRC estimates show
that in two-parent, two-child families daily
household work hours were about 6.1 for
women and 2. 0 for men. Preliminary results
from the NE-113 study show that in two­parent,
two-child families daily household
work hours ranged from 6. 6 to 7. 6 for women
and from 1. 6 to 2. 4 for men. The estimate
for women was lower in SRC than in NE-113,
at least in part, because fewer families
2Four separate time diaries for different
days of the week were collected from each
household between October 1975 and
September 1976. These were used to create a
profile of time use in a typical (synthetic)
week, consisting of at least a Saturday, a
Sunday, and one weekday.
3Some types of volunteer work cannot be
separated from household work in the SRC
data. Moreover, the value of volunteer work
should be added to GNP along with the value
of unpaid work in the home, hence its
inclusion in BEA's estimates.
with a child aged 1 year or less were includ­ed
in the SRC sample. The SRC and NE-113
estimates are not directly comparable at
this time because the NE-113 estimates are
not weighted to reflect State populations.
Valuing hours. In the BEA estimates
for use in the GNP. hours of household work
are valued by the wage rates c;>f market
(paid) workers who perform similar tasks.
This valuation technique is called "specialist
cost" because each type of household work
(e. g •• meal preparation or cleaning) is
valued by the wage rate of an appropriate
specialist (e.g. • cook or cleaner). Conse­quently.
the hourly value of household work
varies by type of work (see table 1). but
does not vary between women and men in
any given type of work.
Considerable uncertainty is associated
with the measurement and valuation of
household work. Three problems are impor­tant.
First. the efficiency of the house­hold
worker may be greater or less than
that of the market worker and/ or the pro­duct
may be of better or poorer quality.
As a result, the value of the household
work could be understated or overstated.
Second, there is considerable "joint pro­duction"
in household work. For example, if
a woman is cooking and talking to children
at the same time. only one activity is
reported as the primary time use when. in
fact, there are two products: a cooked meal
and cared-for or educated children. Third,
the value of the product of household work
is understated relative to the market cost
of the product. This follows because only
labor costs in the form of market wages are
used to value the household work, whereas
market costs include expenses and profits
in addition to wages. On balance, it is
uncertain whether the value of household
work is understated or overstated. These
problems. however, indicate that it is
understated unless household workers per­form
less efficiently or do lower quality
work than market workers.
Because of this uncertainty over valua­tion,
BEA developed a range of estimates
using alternative valuation techniques. 4 In
4For further discussion of valuation
techniques. see box in "New Methods for
Studying Production," p. 33.
addition to the specialist-cost technique,
the alternatives include the housekeeper­cost
technique, in which all hours of
household work are valued by the wage rate
of private household workers; and opportu­nity
cost techniques, in which hours of
work are valued by the wage that the person
doing the household work could have earned
by working an extra hour in the market.
BEA used three alternative opportunity-cost
techniques: (1) Gross compensation, which
can be interpreted as the social-opportunity
cost of the household work; (2) after-tax
compensation, which adjusts for Federal and
State marginal income tax rates; and (3)
net compensation, which adjusts for taxes
but also for commuting and for child care
expenses. Techniques (2) and (3) are esti­mates
of private opportunity costs. The
alternatives result in values of household
work that bracket specialist-cost values.
VALUE OF HOUSEHOLD WORK IN 1976
In 1976, the value of household work of
adults in the United States, based on the
specialist-cost valuation technique, total­ed
$752.4 billion, or 44 percent of GNP.
Alternative valuations ranged from $540. 0
billion to $1, 015.4 billion (see table 2).
For the average adult the housekeeper-cost
valuation was 28 percent less than the
specialist-cost valuation. The valuation
based on gross compensation was 35 percent
higher; the valuation based on after-tax
compensation was 15 percent higher, and the
valuation based on net compensation was
almost identical with the specialist-cost
valuation. (These comparative patterns are
quite different for women than for men
because women's market wage (compensation)
rates, and consequently their opportunity
costs. are lower than men's.) The estimates
emphasized in the remainder of this paper
are based on the specialist-cost valuation
technique.
Women are the principal household
workers. as shown in table 3. In 1976, they
accounted for 68.4 percent of the total
value of household work. Average household
work of women totaled 1, 756 hours a year or
1982(3)/Family Economics Review/17
Table 1. Market equivalent occupations and wage rates for each type of household work
Type of household Market equivalent Market Weight 2 Weighted
work occupations wage 1 average
wae
Dollars Dollars
Meal preparation Cooks (eph)3 3.54 .9605
Cooks (ph)3 2.28 .0395 3.49
Meal cleanup Waiters I waitresses 3.27 .7899
Dishwashers 3.47 .1338
Busboys 3.93 .0763 3.35
Cleaning and gardening Maids/ servants (ph) 2.26 .1557
Cleaning service workers 4.39 .4341
Gardeners/groundskeepers 4. 84 .0626
Miscellaneous laborers 4.83 .1482
Farm laborers 3.04 .1832
Dressmakers/ seamstresses 3.98 .0162 3.90
Laundry Laundresses (ph) 2.43 .0165
Laundry and drycleaning workers 3.66 .4470
Clothing ironers and pressers 3.69 • 5365 3.66
Home repairs and hobbies Painters 6.38 .1390
Painters' apprentices 5.52 .0009
Carpenters 6.82 .3979
Carpenters' apprentices 5.49 .0051
Auto body repairmen 5.83 .0496
Auto mechanics 5.34 .3781
Auto mechanics' apprentices 4.80 .0017
Roofers and slaters 6.68 .0277 6.13
Child care and instruction Child care workers (ph) 2.04 .6568
Child care workers (eph) 3.09 .2972
Welfare service aids 4.34 .0460 42.46
School monitors 4.83 .1642
Teacher aids 3.91 .8358 44.06
Shopping and other Messengers 4.47 .0270
Housekeepers (eph) 4.35 .0490
Housekeepers (ph) 2.62 .0470
File clerks 4. 58 .1742
Bookkeepers 4.83 .7031 54.65
Nursing aides 3.55 .8562
Health aides 4.04 .1438 53.62
1Wage rates in 1969 are average annual earnings divided by average weeks worked and average hours per
week <.!!)• The wage rates are adjusted to 1976 levels on the basis of the rise in average hourly earnings
from 1969 to 1976 for various industry divisions (12).
2Weights are the 1970 percentage of workers in each specific occupation relative to all workers in each
type of household work. For example, there were 819,674 workers in occupations "equivalent" to meal
preparation. Of these, 787,309 were cooks (eph). Thus the weight for cooks (eph) is 787,309/819,674 =
• 9605 <.!!).
3The designations (eph) and (ph) stand for "except private household" and "private househqld."
4Weighted average wage rates were calculated separately for child care and for child instruction. The
separate estbnates were combined into a single type in this article.
SWeighted average wage rates were calculated separately for several of the activities in shopping and
other. The separate estbnates were combined into a single type in this article.
18/ family Econom i cs Rev i ew I 1982 ( J)
33.8 hours a week. The value of those work
hours was $6,694 a year.
Women continue to specialize in household
work despite their increased participation
in the labor force. Of their average total
weekly work hours of 51.4, paid market
work and related commuting accounted for
17.7 hours as compared with th€ 33.8 hours
of work in the home.
In contrast, men specialize in paid
market work. Of their average total weekly
work hours of 50. 0, paid market work and
related commuting accounted for 34.9 hours
as compared with 15.1 hours of work in the
home. Nonetheless, men's work in the home
is considerable, and in 1976, its value
averaged $3,475.
Type of Household Work
The activities that make up household
work are extremely varied, ranging from the
rather methodical task of meal cleanup to
the more complex tasks of financial manage­ment,
child instruction, and home repair.
For women the three most time-consuming
activities were meal preparation, cleaning
and gardening, and shopping and other (see
table 3). Each absorbed more than 7 hours a
week; together they totaled 24.2 hours a
week, almost three-quarters of all house­hold
work hours. Child care and instruc­tion
accounted for another 4.1 hours a
week. In these data, child-care hours in­clude
only hours in which child care is the
primary activity. Many more hours are spent
in contact with children during joint pro­duction.
The average annual value of each
type of women's household work ranged 'from
$1,961 for shopping and other to $227 for
home repairs and hobbies; the aggregate
annual value for each type of activity
ranged from $150.9 billion to $17.5 billion.
Of the 15.1 hours spent in household
work, men averaged 5. 5 in shopping and
other. The average annual value of each
type of men's work ranged from $1,322 for
shopping and other to $23 for laundry; the
aggregate annual value for all men ranged
from $90.2 billion to $1.6 billion.
Clearly, men and women specialize in the
types of household work that they do. Men
accounted for 77.7 percent of the value of
home repairs and hobbies. Women accounted
for 95. 7 percent of the value of laundry
work; more than 80. 0 percent of the values
of meal preparation, meal cleanup, and child
care and instruction; and 62.6 percent of
the value of shopping and other.
Table 2. Alternative values of household work in 1976
[Billions of dollars)
Market cost valuation Opportunity cost valuation
Population
group
Adttlts ••••••••••••••
Women ••••••••••••
Men ••••••••••••••
Housekeeper
cost 1
540.0
386.4
153.6
Specialist
cost
752.4
515.0
237.4
Gross
compensation2
1,015.4
608.1
407.3
After-tax
canpensation3
865.0
522.5
342.5
1 Based on hourly compensation rates of private household workers.
Net
compensation'+
751.8
433.2
318.6
2f1ourly compensation rates are based on earnings and hours reported on the Survey
Research Center survey, adjusted for supplements to earnings. For those with n~ reported
earnings, compensation rates are based on compensation by age, sex, and education
characteristics. .
3 Gross compensation less estimated marginal Federal. and State mcome taxes.
'+Hourly after-tax compensation less average expenditures per ho~r of work for ~hild care
an d commu tm. g an d th e value of an hour of commuting time. All child care expenditures are
attributed to women.
19820) /Family Economics Review/ 19
N I 0
.........,..
CD
3 ..... I ......
'<
M
n
0
::l
0
3 .....
n
CD
:::0
CD
.<... .
CD • ........ ....
g I
Table 3. Hours and value1 of household work in 1976
Total for all adults 2 Average per adult
Type of work
Annual hours Annual value Weekly Annual Annual value
hours hours
Bi 11 ions Percent Bi 11 ion Percent Dollars
dollars
Adults:
All work •.•....•.•...•.•.••••.••••• 188.8 100.0 752.4 100.0 25.0 1,300 5,180
Women:
All work •••....•.•.•.......•••.•..• 135.1 100.0 515.0 100.0 33.8 1,756 6,694
Meal preparation ••••••••••••••••• 29.0 21.5 101.2 19.7 7.3 377 1,316
Meal cleanup ....••.•••.....•••••. 9.4 7.0 31.5 6.1 2.4 122 409
Cleaning and gardening •••••••••• 35.2 26~1 137.5 26.7 8.8 458 1,787
Laundry ••••••••••••••••••••••••• 9.7 7.2 35.6 6.9 2.4 127 463
Home repairs and hobbies •••••••• 2.8 2.1 17.5 3.4 .7 37 227
Child care and instruction ••••••• 16.3 12.1 40.8 7.9 4.1 211 531
Shopping and other 3
•••••••••••••• 32.7 24.2 150.9 29.3 8.1 425 1,961
Men:
All work ••••••.•••....•.....•••••.• 53.7 100.0 237.4 100.0 15.1 786 3,475
Meal preparation ••••••••••••••••• 5.6 10.4 19.7 8.3 1.6 83 289
Meal cleanup ..•.................. 1.3 2.4 4.3 1.8 .4 19 63
Cleaning and gardening •••••••••• 13.1 24.4 50.9 21.4 3.7 191 745
Laundry ••.•....••............... .4 .7 1. 6 .7 .1 6 23
Home repairs and hobbies •••••••• 9.9 18.4 60.6 25.5 2.8 145 888
Child care and instruction ••••••• 3.9 7.3 10.0 4.2 1. 1 58 146
Shopping and other 3
•••••••••••••• 19.5 36.3 90.2 38.0 5.5 285 1,322
1Household work is valued by specialist cost.
2The relative importance of each type of work differs somewhat for values as opposed to hours because the specialist
cost valuation technique assigns different hourly values (wage rates) to each type of work. Work on home repairs and
hobbies was assigned the highest wage rate, hence its share of value was greater than its share of hours; child care
and instruction was assigned the lowest wage rate, hence its share of value was less than its share of hours.
30ther consists mainly of bill paying, recordkeeping, and volunteer work.
Women's Household Work by
Various Characteristics
The average value of household work
masks many variations across women,
depending for example on their employment
status, n urn ber of earners in their family,
presence of children, age, and own earn­ings.
These estimates are shown in table 4.
The estimates should be interpreted
cautiously for two reasons. First, the
sample on which the estimates of hours are
based is small. Second, no attempt is made
to control for correlations among variables.
For example, a woman's age is correlated
with the presence of children in the house­hold.
Consequently, some of the variables
discussed may not be significant determi­nants
of the value of a woman's household
work when they are considered simultane­ously
with other variables.
Employment. Employment has a major
effect on the allocation of time. Declines
in leisure time, sleep, volunteer work, and
household work have been traced to employ­ment
in the market (~, ~ • ..!.Q_, _!!). The
important effect of employment is not sur­prising
given the large block of hours that
market work requires, whether employment
is full time or part time.
A woman's household work in 1976 aver­aged
42.6 hours a week when she was not
employed, 31.4 hours when she was employed
part time, and 20.1 hours when she was
employed full time (see table 4). The shift
from nonemployment to full-time employment
roughly halved weekly hours in household
work. Those raw data undoubtedly overstate
the effect of employment on household work
because other variables are ignored; for
example, employment is correlated with the
presence of fewer and older children, which
also reduces household work.
Each type of household work shared in
this decline in weekly hours as a result of
employment. Child care declined the most in
percentage terms, shopping and other the
least. Cleaning and gardening declined more
than meal preparation and cleanup.
Yet, even for a woman employed full time,
hours in household work remained sizable.
All work hours (in the home, in the market,
and in job-related commuting) totaled 66.9
a week for a woman working full time and
52.2 a week for a woman working part
time. 5 Consequently, an employed women
had considerably fewer nonwork hours--for
leisure activities, for example--than did
a nonemployed women.
The value of a woman's household work
fell with household work hours. It totaled
$8,405 a year when she was not employed,
$6,243 when she was employed part time,
and $4, 040 when she was employed full time.
The effect on the household of this
decline in an employed woman's hours of
household work might be offset in three
ways: (1) The woman might accomplish the
work more efficiently, that is, in less
time; (2) other household members might
increase their household work hours; and
(3) market-purchased goods or services
might be substituted for the unpaid house­hold
work. Apparently, no evidence is avail­able
concerning the relative efficiency of
employed and nonemployed women. On point
2, the evidence shows very little added
household work by husbands when the wife
is employed (.!_, ~. _!!). On point 3, the
evidence seems to show no important substi­tutions
of paid help for ordinary household
care; however, paid child care does seem to
increase significantly and restaurant meals
may also increase (!, ~. ..!.Q_). The share of
household expenditures going to services
does increase with employment of women, but
that, apparently, is accounted for by
increased work-related expenses of employed
women, not by the substitution of market
goods and services for unpaid household
work (_!.~)· Thus, the evidence seems to
show that goods and services provided by
household work are lower in homes where
the women is employed than in homes where
she is not employed, and further that the
sA man working full time averaged
somewhat lower total hours: 62.9 a week,
including 11.6 in household work. A man's
commuting time averaged almost 1 hour a
week more than a woman's and a man's
market work averaged about 4 hours more,
perhaps because of more overtime, more
second jobs, and more job-related travel,
all of which are included in market work
hours.
1982(3) /Family Economics Review/21
N I Table 4. Average value 1 of a woman's household work in 1976, by various characteristics
N
.......,..
Ill
3... .. Nmi>er Weekly Annual value of household work
...... Characteristic in hours of
'< sample household Meal Meal Cleaning Hane repairs Child care Shopping
1""'1
n work Total preparation cleanup arxl Laundry arxl arxl arxl
0 j gardening hobbies instruction other
0
3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Dollars - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
.....
n All women ....••.•... 793 (J) 33.8 6,694 1,316 409 1,787 463 227 531 1,961
::n Employment status:
CD Not employed •••••• 367 42.6 8,405 1,668 508 2,351 612 282 695 2,289 .<... . Employed part time 245 31.4 6,243 1,189 381 1,570 397 234 520 1,952 CD
:€ Employed full time 181 ....... 20.1 4,040 814 256 1,000 268 113 235 1,354 ... ..., Number of earners: 2
Cit
N
None .•.....•....•. 42 40.0 8,010 1,785 698 2,508 443 307 276 1,993
"..".". One ••••••••••••••• 250 46.9 9,157 1,892 556 2,226 767 308 904 2,504
Two •.............. 284 30.7 6,036 1,250 406 1,537 409 158 507 1,769
Number of children:
None •••••••••••••• 401 29.5 6,078 1,174 366 1,801 362 274 155 1,947
One •••••..•...•.•• 134 33.2 6,423 1,201 426 1,509 442 182 758 1,904
Two .•.•.•....•.•.. 120 41.4 7, 748 1,644 469 1,974 658 140 1,194 1,669
Three or more ••••• 138 43.7 8,354 1,682 497 1,874 693 176 1,113 2,319
Age of youngest child:
No children ••••••• 400 29.5 6,079 1,178 363 1,806 363 270 155 1,945
1-4 years ••••••••• 161 43.5 7,969 1,463 474 1,830 540 134 1,598 1,931
5-12 years •••••••• 170 36.8 7,209 1,544 452 1,593 616 253 720 2,032
13-17 years ••••••• 62 35.2 6,981 1,424 482 2,039 639 560 375 1,966
Age:
18-24 years ••••••• 110 24.7 4,897 840 299 1,155 220 246 526 1,611
25-29 years ••••••• 116 37.1 7,043 1,304 366 1,652 515 171 1,097 1,938
30-39 years ••••••• 181 36.5 7,030 1,440 422 1,614 533 183 886 1,951
40-49 years ••••••• 112 34.4 6,845 1,365 439 1,872 527 165 434 2,042
50-59 years ••••••• 110 35.1 7,121 1,364 420 1,966 631 295 341 2,103
60-64 years ••••••• 49 33.6 6,825 1,490 425 1,928 454 232 230 2,066
65 years and over. 114 35.4 7,280 1,494 492 2,433 372 294 89 2,105
Own earnings: 3
None, negative, N/A4 36 18.7 3,697 841 250 1,061 334 47 181 984
$1- 4,999 •••••••• 33 21.0 4,255 832 299 962 181 68 2i6 1,667
$5,000- 9,999 •••• 66 21.1 4,244 824 271 953 301 137 298 1,462
$10,000 and over •• 46 19.2 . 3,912 766 212 1,037 222 165 191 1,318
lHousehold work is valued by specialist cost.
2Data are for only those women who are married, spouse present; therefore, the data are not related to the totals for all women.
3Data are for only those women who are employed full time; therefore, the data are not related to the totals for alJ. women.
'*Not available.
substitution of market purchases does not
fully offset the lower amounts of household
work.
Number of earners. With the rise in
employment of women, the numbers of two­earner
families have increased. The employ­ment
of a wife raises family money income
but lowers the value of the wife's house­hold
work. The value of that work for a
woman in a two-earner family was $6, 036 in
1976, as compared with $9,157 for a woman
in a one-earner family (see table 4). On
average, then, the value of a woman's
household work was estimated to be $3,121
less when she was in a two-earner family
rather than in a one-earner family.
Consequently, comparisons of the relative
well-being of one- and two-earner families
are misleading when they focus on money
income alone. The one-earner family is
clearly better off economically than the
two-earner family with identical money
income. Not only is the value of household
work lower in two-earner families, but
their leisure time also is lower. Moreover,
about one-third of the wife's paycheck goes
into work-related expenses such as taxes,
commuting costs, and child care (13).
Presence of children. The presence of
children is one of the more important de­terminants
of time use (9, 14). It leads
directly to the devotion ~f sizable blocks
of time to child care and indirectly to
increased amounts of other household work.
Both the number of children and the age of
the youngest child influence the hours and
value of a woman's household work.
Hours a week in child care in 1976 rose
from 1. 2 when there were no children to 5. 9
when there was one child, to 9.1 when there
were two children, and to 8. 5 when there
were three or more children. Consequently,
the more children there were, the fewer
hours of care there were per child (_~). The
value of these hours averaged $758 a year
for a woman with one child, $1,194 for a
woman with two children, and $1,113 for a
woman with three or more children (see
table 4).
When the youngest child was 1 to 4 years
of age, hours in child care averaged 12.4 a
week; they declined to 5. 4 when the young­est
child was 5-12 years, and to 2. 9 when
the youngest child was 13-17 years. The
value of time spent in child care averaged
$1,598, $720, and $375 a year, respectively
(see table 4). These raw data may be mis­leading
because of correlations between
numbers of children and age of youngest
child, but apparently hours of care per
child did decline as the child became
older.
The presence of children also meant added
hours spent in meal preparation and cleanup
and in doing laundry. The combined in­creases
in child care and in other types of
household work resulted in a steadily
rising value of a woman's household work
with the number of children: from $6,078 a
year when there were no children, to $6,423
when there was one child, to $7,748 when
there were two children, and to $8,354 when
there were three or more children. Hours in
meal preparation and cleanup and in doing
laundry rose to some degree as the youngest
child aged, partially offsetting the de-cline
in hours of child care. Nonetheless,
the value of a woman's household work fell,
as the age of the youngest child rose, from
$7,969 when the child was 1-4 years of age,
to $7,209 when the child was 5-12 years,
and to $6,981 when the child was 13-17
years.
Age. The raising of children affects
the changing profile of a woman's household
work over the life cycle. In 1976, the
value of time spent in child care reached a
peak of $1,097 a year when a woman was
25-29 years of age and then declined con­tinually
as a women aged (see table 4). No
other type of household work varied as much
in percentage terms over the life cycle.
All types of household work (except home
repairs and hobbies) increased in the early
years of adulthood, as shown by changes in
household work of women from ages 18-24 to
ages 25-29. Beyond age 29, changes in
household work were modest, with two major
exceptions: (1) Child care, which declined
sharply as noted above, and (2) cleaning
and gardening, which rose sharply after age
64. This rise in the value of cleaning and
gardening work over the life cycle--and
indeed the slight rise in work associated
with meals--is surprising, since one would
1982(3)/family Economics Review/23
expect the values of such work to decline
as children age and eventually leave the
home. Whether this means women become less
efficient, or do more household work
because they have more time, or spend more
time in gardening because, for some, it is
a leisure activity, is uncertain. In addi­tion,
these cross-sectional data may give a
misleading picture of life cycle changes;
perhaps women in the younger generations
simply spend less time cleaning and cooking
at every age than do women in the older
generations.
When the types of household work were
aggregated, their total value showed a
sharp rise from $4,897 a year at ages 18-24
to $7,043 at ages 25-29. Thereafter,
changes were fairly small. Even after the
"retirement age" of 65, the value of a
woman's household work did not diminish.
Consequently, the life cycle profile of the
value of household work was distinctly
different from the life cycle profile of
money earnings, with its characteristic
inverted U shape resulting from reduced
earnings in the later years of life.
Own earnings •. Increases in a woman's
own earnings might be expected to lower the
hours of her household work. For a woman
who was employed full time, there was a
slight decline in hours of household work
when her annual earnings were over $10,000.
These hours were 21.0 a week when her
earnings were $1 to $4,999, 21.1 when her
earnings were $5,000 to $9,999, and 19.2
when her earnings were $10,000 or more (see
table 4). The annual values of her household
work were $4,255, $4,244, and $3,912,
respectively.
The way in which the value of household
work varies with the level of a woman's own
earnings depends on the technique that is
used to value the household work. Op por-t
unity-cost techniques, which use wages
foregone by the woman doing the work, re­sult
in rising, rather than falling, values
of household work with rising earnings:
from $1,567 when earnings are $1 to $4,999,
to $4,795 when earnings are $10,000 or more.
24/family Economics Review/19820)
This rise in value occurs even though hours
spent in household work decline with earn­ings.
Only if the efficiency of women in
household work rises with their earnings,
which are in turn presumably related to
education, would opportunity-cost tech­niques
result in reasonable relative values
of the real product of household work
across earnings classes. Moreover,
opportunity-cost techniques provide ques­tionable
relative values for earners as
compared with nonearners; with those tech­niques,
the hourly value of household work
of non earners is likely to be lower, even
though their experience in such work is
greater.
CHANGES IN THE VALUE OF HOUSEHOLD
WORK SINCE 1976
Since 1976 the value of household work
has risen sharply along with wage rates. In
1981, rough averages were $10,000 for women
and $5,000 for men, increases of 47 percent
since 1976. For the average full-time home­maker,
a rough value is $12,500. In the
aggregate, the value of household work has
increased by about 60 percent to $1,200
billion for all adults, $825 billion for women,
and $375 billion for men; those increases
reflect growth of population as well as of
wage rates.
Those rough estimates of increases assume
that the hours spent in household work have
not changed since 1976. Actually, however,
household work hours of women have proba­bly
declined. For all women, regardless of
employment status, the evidence points to
some significant, but rather small, de-clines
in hours of work from the midsixties
to the midseventies (_!, _!). Such declines
may have continued in recent years. In
addition, paid employment of women con­tinued
to increase, bringing with it the
declines in household work hours that were
documented earlier.
It is important to understand and to
quantify the declines in household work
hours that result from paid employment of
women. Those declines are sizable; they
affect the family dramatically, and they
probably will continue into the foreseeable
future. For example, the labor force par­ticipation
rate for women was 51 percent in
1979 and is projected to reach at least 60
percent by 199 0 (J_). The relation between
household work hours and paid employment
could be clarified by additional data collec­tion
and research. Data for time use should
be collected from large, representative
samples of the population--possibly with
longitudinal components, in which families
would be followed over time. Then, multi­variate
analyses of household work hours
could isolate the influence of employment
on household work.
CONCLUSION
The estimated dollar values presented
here substantiate the importance of house­hold
work. Its value is around 44 percent of
GNP and for women, who account for most
household work, its value is roughly double
their reported money earnings. In addition
to their supplementation of GNP, estimates
of the value of household work could have a
number of important uses. They are critical
tools in litigation concerning deaths, inju­ries,
and divorces because they establish
the economic contribution of homemakers to
their families. Dollar values of household
work also could justify reforms in policies
that effect the treatment of women in the
social security system and affect the
treatment of two-earner families in the
income tax system.
LITERATURE CITED
1. Gauger, William H., and Kathryn E.
Walker. 1973. The dollar value of
household work, Information Bulletin
60. New York State College of Human
Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca,
N.Y.
2. Goebel, Karen P. 1981. Time use and
family life, Family Economics Review,
summer issue, pp. 20-25.
3. Hill, C. Russel, and Frank P. Stafford.
1980. Parental care of children: Time
diary estimates of quantity, predict­ability,
and variety. The Journal of
Human Resources, spring issue,
p. 219-239.
4. Hofferth, Sandra L., and Kristen A.
Moore. 1979. Women's employment and
marriage • .!!!. Ralph E. Smith, editor.
The Subtle Revolution: Women at Work.
The Urban Institute, Washington, D. C.
5. Juster, F. Thomas, et. al. 1978. Time
Use in Economic and Social Accou~
Survey Research Center, Institute for
Social Research, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
6. Ortiz, Bonnie, and others. 1981. The
effect of homemakers' employment on
meal preparation time, meals at home,
and meals away from home. Home Eco­nomics
Research Journal 9(3): 200-206.
7. Personick, Valerie A. 1981. The outlook
for industry output and employment
through 1990. Monthly Labor Review
104(8):28-41. U.S. Department of
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
8. Robinson, John P. 1977. Changes in
Americans' use of time: 1965-1975. A
Progress Report. Communication
Research Center, Cleveland State
University, Ohio.
9. 1977. How Americans Use
Time. Praeger Publication, New York.
10. Strober, Myra H., and Charles B.
Weinberg. 1980. Strategies used by
working and nonworking wives to
reduce time pressures. Journal of
Consumer Research 6(4): 338-348.
11. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau
of the Census. 1972. Occupational
characteristics. 1970 Census of
Population, Subject Reports, Final
Report PC(2)-7A.
12. U.s. Department of Labor, Bureau of
Labor Statistics. 1980. Monthly Labor
Review 103(2):85.
13. Vickery, Clair. 1979. Women's economic
contribution to the family. In Ralph
E. Smith, editor. The Subtle Revolu­tion:
Women at Work. The Urban
Institute, Washing:ton, D. c.
14. Walker, Kathryn E., and Margaret E.
Woods. 1976. Time Use: A Measure of
Household Production of Family Goods
and Services. Center for the Family of
the American Home Economics Associa­tion,
Washington, D. C.
1982(3)/family Economics Review/25
Of Time, Dual Careers, and
Household Productivity1
By John P. Robinson
Director, Survey Research Center
University of Maryland
The time-diary method of measuring time
allocation represents a significant advance
in accounting for what may be America's
most precious natural resource. It provides
a complete accounting of time, one resource
that is equally distributed to all segments
of our society--at least in the short run.
How productively or how wisely that re­source
is used is another matter.
Time allocations by themselves are limited
in what they reveal about human behavior,
such as its productivity or wisdom. To
obtain information about human behavior,
the analyst must either assign values
(monetary, utilitarian, or moral) to time,
or else ask people to evaluate the value of
what they do or the "output" from how they
spend time. The Bureau of Economic Analy­sis,
U.s. Department of Commerce, assigned
monetary values to time; 2 in this paper the
evaluative responses of people are con­sidered.
The sample consists of a cross section of
almost 2,500 American adults and their
spouses, who were interviewed and completed
24-hour time diaries in the fall of 1975
for the Survey Research Center of the
University of Michigan. The Michigan study
recontacted the respondents by telephone on
three subsequent occasions in 1976 asking
them to complete another daily time diary
on each occasion. An extensive set of back­ground
and "subjective" questions about the
values respondents attached to various uses
of time were also included in this four-wave
study. The final data tape for the project
consisted of almost 8, 000 variables, making
lThis article is condensed from a paper
presented at the Agricultural Outlook
Conference in November 1981 at Washington,
D. c. Complete copies are available from the
Family Economics Research Group (see p. 2
for address).
z See "Measuring Household Production for
the GNP" by Janice Peskin on p. 16.
26 /F am ily Economics Rev i ew / 1982(3)
it one of the most complex and richest so­cial
science data sets in the United States.
Survey Research Center's national sample of
1, 244 nonrural respondents who completed
single-day time diaries in the fall of 1965
is also discussed.
The readers of this paper will likely en­counter
some unexpected, counterintuitive,
and even unexplainable findings that chal­lenge
conventional wisdom about how societal
life is organized and is changing. Popular
models of America as a "postindustrial"
society--either in the midst of a flowering
of culture, cuisine, and recreating, or
evolving into a "harried leisure class"-­receive
very little support in the
time-diary data (~).
Time Spent on Housework
In both the 1965 and 1975 studies of time
use, women reported close to 80 percent of
all the household work or family care in
America3--a figure that is not atypical for
other Western or Eastern European countries
in which time-diary studies have been con­ducted.
While this proportion was lower in
1975 than a decade earlier, that was mainly
a result of women doing less housework and
not of men doing more housework. More
women in the paid labor force, fewer married
women, and fewer women with children ac­counted
for the decrease in the amount of
household work or family care by women from
1965 to 1975. Anaysis, however, revealed
that this change also was part of a histor­ical
shift (6). For the first time in this
century (other things being equal), women
apparently were simply devoting less time
to housework and family care than had pre­vious
generations of women. In 1965 and
1975, employed women were found to devote
about half as much time as full-time home-
- makers in family care.
The time-diary data in both 1965 and 1975
also have provided vivid testimony to how
insensitive men's family care time was to the
3Family care includes all household
cleaning, meal preparation, laundry, child
care, and shopping. For further data on the
methodology of time diaries, see Szalai,
et al., (.1_) and Robinson (!_).
pressures that escalate women's family care
time. A woman's family care time increases
dramatically when she marries or has chil­dren
and declines dramatically when she
enters the paid labor force; men's house­work
is barely affected by any of these
factors. When men retire, however, their
housework increases but it is likely to take
place outside the home--in the yard, garden,
or stores--rather than inside the dwelling
unit where the "hard core" housework is
performed. Men spend much less time with
children than women do and are more likely
to spend their time in "interactional"
activities (e. g., play or reading) rather
than in custodial activities (e. g., feeding
or dressing).
How, then, do women react to the imbal­ances
in this division of household labor?
Do they find their lives less satisfying,
or their free time less fulfilling? Do they
look for more help from their husbands in
household work or child care? The answers
to these questions when asked of these same
women, in large part, seems to be "no"--at
least in terms of the subjective questions
asked in the survey. Even women in the
most time-demanding conditions--employed
full time and with young children at
home--did not describe their lives or their
free time as less satisfying than did women
who have neither of these responsibilities.
Nor did most married women say they expect
or wish for more help from their husbands
(4). While the proportion of women express­i~
g such opinions in 1975 did increase from
the 19 percent stating that wish in 1965,
it still amounted to less than a third of
all wives. 4
Single women (without children) still do
two to three times as much housework as
their male counterparts; not that the cur­rent
state-of-affairs means that women have
4This result was not apparently an artifact
of either the phrasing of the questions or
the presence of the husband during the
interview. Followup, open-end questions
showed that women deeply feel housework is
not in their husband's "territory." More­over,
more women expressed a desire for
more help from the husband when he was
present than when he was absent during the
interview.
less f.ree time generally than men. On the
whole, adult men and women have roughly
equivalent amounts of free time across the
life cycle. This is because of the imbalance
between full-time homemakers (who have more
free time than men) and women in the labor
force (who have less). What the time diaries
do make abundantly clear is that it is the
married working mothers who comprise the
"harried leisure class" in our society. Far
higher proportions of married working moth­ers
responded "always feel rushed to do the
things you have to do" than any other social
segment of the population in the survey.
The Output From Family Care
Are there benefits from housework time
that employed women sacrifice when they in­vest
their time in the workplace as well as
the household? What is it that makes them
as satisfied with their lot in life as women
who do not work? Is there any return for
their sacrifice of free time, or for their
more harried lifestyle? In particular, what
differences in "output" from their lower
time spent at housework can be identified?
The measures of output focused on the
"quality" of the final product. Quality
refers to how clean and neat the house is,
how clean or adequate the supply of laundry
is, how good or adequate the supply of food
in the house is, and how well the children
are brought up. Ideally, quality of output
should be measured by standardized ratings
of such factors made by experts in the
fields of household sanitation, high cuisine,
or developmental psychology. That option,
however, was clearly not feasible with a
national sample scattered across the coun­try
and already burdened with providing
over 4 hours of information. Therefore,
subjective reactions of the respondents
themselves were used. It may be argued that
as final consumers of the products involved
they are the best judges of their value.
Respondents were asked to rate these
various outputs using a scale of 0 to 10;
10 representing complete satisfaction and 0
reported for complete dissatisfaction.
Very few householders rated themselves a
10, or even a 9, on the scale. The average
rating for household cleanliness was 7. 26
and was slightly higher by men than by
1982(3) / Family Economics Review / 27
women. Scores are compared in the table on
page 29 between full-time homemakers and
employed women, who spend only half as
much time in family care as their homemaker
counterparts. Differences in average satis­faction
ratings of women in and out of the
paid labor force before and after correction
for other important predictors of household
output are shown in the table. The "after"
corrections were determined by the multi­variate
regression program, Multiple Classi­fication
of Analysis of Andrews, et al. (1).
When the measures are controlled for age,
income, marital status, and other character­istics,
full-time homemakers are not signif­icantly
more satisfied with the household
output, with one exception--quality of main
meal. No significant differences existed
between employed women (who spend minimal
time with these activities due to outside job
pressures) and women who devote at least
half again as much time in their roles as
full-time homemakers. In other words, when
one takes into account the differential
composition of women in and out of the paid
labor force in age, income, and so forth,
women's employment per se does not emerge
as a significant predictor of how satisfied
they are with household output.
It might well be argued, however, that
the questions tapped only the standards of
the respondents and that women who have
entered the paid labor force have simply
lowered their standards of achievement; that
would account for their lack of difference
from full-time housewives. As a check, the
respondents were asked to rate their house­hold
outputs as a "person who is very picky
about things" would rate them on the 0 to
10 scale for three of the criteria--cleanliness
of the household, cleanliness of the laundry,
and quality of the main meal. 5
sThe interviewers of the Survey Research
Center, at the time of their first and only
visit to the respondents' premises, made
what might be considered an objective set
of ratings. Immediately after the interview
they rated on a scale from 1 (very clean)
to 5 (dirty) the cleanliness of the house­hold.
Those ratings averaged 1. 91 which
corresponds roughly to the ratios the
respondents gave their own houses (on the
0 to 10 scale).
28/Family Economics Review/1982(3)
In general, the introduction of the
"picky person" did serve the intended pur­pose
of deflating the values on the 0 to 10
scale. The pattern of those scores was
similar to those in the table: Housewives
rated their various productivity character­istics
higher than employed women did, but
not significantly beyond chance after cor­rection
for various characteristics. The
one exception appears to be in the quality
of meals, but the difference is not highly
significant. 6
Summary and Conclusions
Despite the large differences in the time
spent in housework and other family care
activities by full-time homemakers and women
in the paid labor force, little evidence
indicated that household production
suffered significantly as a consequence of
employment. Employed women rated the
cleanliness of their households almost as
favorably as did full-time homemakers.
Little difference was also found in ratings
between employed women and housewives in
their evaluations of the amount of food,
amount and cleanliness of laundry, and the
accomplishments of their children. House­wives
rated the quality of their main meals
significantly higher than did employed
women, but the significance was marginal.
These results do not stand in complete
isolation; for example, there does not seem
to be any convergent evidence that children
raised by mothers who work are any worse
off psychologically or emotionally as a
result (3). This raises basic questions
about the assumption that household produc­tivity
can be properly accounted for
strictly in terms of hours spent. If an em­ployed
woman can accomplish much the same
levels of productivity--and without feeling
more dissatisfied in the process--then it
6 The differences are reduced into insig­nificance
when other factors, such as the
enjoyment the woman derives from the cook­ing
or the energy and effort she devoted to
it, were added into the analysis.
Satisfaction with household output by employed women and housewives 1
[ 0 = completely dissatisfied]
[ 10 = completely satisfied]
House
Food
a.
b.
Characteristic
How clean is your house?
Employed women ••••••••••••••••
Housewives . ...........•........
Difference ••••••
How good are the main meals?
Employed women • •••••••••••••••
Housewives . .................••.
Difference ••••••
Amount of food in the house?
Employed women • •••••••••••••••
Housewives .. •...•........... • • •
Difference ••••••
Clothing
a. How clean is the laundry?
Employec;l women ••••••••••••••••
Housewives .. •...•.•.•.•....... •
Difference ••••••
b. The amount of clean clothes
available?
Employed women ••••••••••••••••
Housewives . .............. •. • • • •
Difference ••••••
Children
a. The amount of time you spend
with your children?
Employed women •••••••••••• •. • •
Housewives . .............. • • • • • •
Difference ••••••
b. How well your children are
doing in life?
Employed women ••••• • •. • • • • • • • •
Housewives . .......... • • • • • • • • • •
11975 data only.
2Not significant.
Difference ••••••
Single Difference--
(uncorrected) corrected for
difference background factors
7.01
7.38
.37
7.65
8.14
.49
8.04
8.47
.43
8.71
9.02
.31
8.74
9.14
• 40
6.88
7.32
.44
8.28
8.43
.15
7.13
7.30
2 .17
7.76
8.06
• 30
8.24
8.33
2 • 09
8.78
8.93
2 .15
8.85
9.04
2 .19
6.95
7.18
2 • 23
8.36
8.35
2_• 01
Number
of
respondents
349
324
349
322
350
322
350
322
350
322
169
175
169
175
1982{J) /Family Economics Review/29
becomes difficult to argue that all hours
of housework should valued equally.
All this hinges on the present tentative
nature of the measures of output or produc­tivity.
These measures need far more veri­fication
of their validity and reliability.
The correlation between respondent and
interviewer ratings of cleanliness are
currently being analyzed, as well as the
ratings of husbands, who also are affected
by the quality of household output. More
direct quantitative measurements of output
are also being examined; while it is true
that housewives do cook more meals and
wash more loads of laundry than employed
women, the amounts involved still fall
short of the overall 2 to 1 ratio of time
expenditure differences between the two
groups.
These results are intended to raise
questions rather than to answer them.
Nonetheless, they reinforce the need for
more definitive and comprehensive study of
what happens in the household as a result
of what women invest and sacrifice in their
time and energy. Now, when so many women
are vitally concerned with the costs and
benefits of dual careers, it is clearly the
time for careful and considered answers.
References
1. Andrews, Frank, .John Sonquist, and
James Morgan. 1969. Multiple Classi­fication
Analysis. Institute of Social
Research, Ann Arbor, Mich.
2. Becker, Gary s. 1965. A theory of the
allocation of time. Economic Journal,
75(299): 493-517.
3. Hoffman, Lois, and I. Nye. 1974. Working
Mothers. Jossey- Bass, San Francisco,
Calif.
4. Robinson, John P. 1977. How Americans
Use Time. Praeger, New York.
5. 1979. Toward a post-industrious
society. Public Opinion,
vol. 2 (August/September), p. 41-46.
6. 1980. Household work. In
Sarah F. Berk, editor. Women and
Household Labor, p. 53-67. Sage Publi­cations,
Beverly Hills, Calif.
7. Szalai, Alexander, et al. 1972. The Use
of Time, Daily Activities of Urban and
Suburban Populations in 12 Countries.
Mouton: Hague, Netherlands.
JO/Family Economics Review/1982(J)
New Methods for Studying
Household · Production
By Colien Hefferan
Economist
Research in household production has
many uses for home economists and others
working with families. Comprehensive and
up-to-date information regarding household
productive activities is used to determine
what families produce for themselves and
how this production serves to substitute
for or augment ·goods and services purchased
in the marketplace. Information about the
activities that contribute most to helping
families maintain and improve their levels
of living is used to design educational
programs and develop criteria on which
individuals and families can base decisions
for the most effective direction of their
productive efforts. Research-based esti­mates
of the extent and value of household
production contribute to public policy
discussions of broad social issues, such as
the inclusion of unpaid household work in
the social security system and national
income accounts. Estimates of the economic
value of household production can also be
used in resolving legal disputes over the
. distribution of property during divorce,
the assessment of loss in wrongful death
cases, and the taxation of gifts and estates.
Three methodological problems, however,
have impeded progress in research and
limited the applicability of research find­ings
in household production. Problem 1
concerns the definition of household pro­duction,
specifically identification of the
boundary between production and con­sumption
activities in the home. Problem 2
concerns measurement of household produc­tion,
specifically measurement of multiple
activities that occur simultaneously and of
work performed by two or more persons
together. Problem 3 concerns valuation,
specifically determination of the tech­niques
that will produce the most meaning­ful
and consistent estimates of the economic
value of household work.
During 1981, the Family Economics
Research Group of the Agricultural Research
Service, U.s. Department of Agriculture,
contracted with three research teams that
were to examine these methodological prob­lems.
Ivan Beutler and Alma Owen, at the
University of Missouri, examined the defi­nition
issue. H. Leslie Steeves, at the
University of Iowa, and Karen Goebel,
Margaret Andreasen, Lloyd Bostian, and
Richard Powers, at the University of
Wisconsin, examined simultaneous. production
in households with employed women. Kathryn
Stafford and Margaret Sanik, at Ohio State
University, tested alternative methods of
valuing household food production.
Definition of Household Production
Based on their theoretical model of
nonmarket production, 1 Beutler and Owen
developed a four-part questionnaire that
differentiates the home activity process
into three components: Household produc­tion,
nonreplaceable home production, and
consumption.2 The questionnaire is designed
to distinguish production and consumption
on the bases of the nature of the inputs
into an activity, the technology employed
(including human capital), and the charac­teristic
output from the activity. The
questionnaire can also be used as a general
measure of the level of selected nonmarket
activities (with emphasis on meal prepara­tion)
in which the household engages, and
socioeconomic variables that describe the
household. Finally, the questionnaire can be
used to assess the respondent's perception
of the extent to which the characteristics
produced through nonmarket activities
indicate the process of production or
consumption.
1 Ivan F. Beutler and Alma J. Owen, 1980,
A home production activity model, Home
Economics Research Journal 9(1): 16-26.
2 Household production consists of unpaid
activities in the home that could be
replaced by market goods and services.
Nonreplaceable home production consists of
unpaid activities in the home resulting in
goods and services that have use value, but
no market equivalent goods and services.
Consumption consists of activities associ­ated
with the final use of goods and
services offered through market and
nonmarket sources.
The questionnaire was reviewed by a
select panel of experts in the area of house­hold
production research and pretested on
small, deliberate sample.
Measurement of Simultaneous Activities
Steeves and her colleagues used data
collected from a sample of 378 employed
women living in Wisconsin and Illinois to
examine the nature and extent of simulta­neous
productive activities in the home.
They classified household production
activities into eight categories: Shopping,
food preparation, housecleaning and mainte­nance,
travel, management, physical care of
family members, interactive care of family
members, and transportation of family
members. Of all household production acti­vities,
shopping was most likely to be done
as a separate activity (54 percent of the
time), while travel was least likely to be
done as a separate activity (14 percent of
the time). Other categories of productive
activities were done as separate activities
about one-fourth to one-third of the time.
When done simultaneously, however, the
activities most likely to accompany house­hold
production were interactive family
care and other personal interactions. Res­pondents
worked alone more than one-half
their household productive time and worked
.only one-third their time with another
family member. The remainder of the time
they worked with someone other than family
members.
Demographic characteristics were closely
related to the total time spent in household
production activities. The factors most
likely to be related to total household
work time were age of youngest child, mari­tal
status, age of the respondent, number
of children at home, and hours worked
outside the home.
Demographic characteristics were less
closely related to degree of simultaneous
productive activities than to total house­hold
work time. Specifically, married women
were more likely to engage in family care,
management, and travel simultaneously with
19820)/family Economics Review / 31
other productive activities than were sin­gle
women, who tended to engage in these
activities as , separate tasks. The more
hours per week the homemaker worked for
pay, the more likely she was to engage in
family care as a simultaneous activity.
Similarly, the greater the number of child­ren,
the more likely the homemaker was to
engage in food preparation, housecleaning
and maintenance, family care, and travel
simultaneously with another productive
activity. The findings of Steeves et al.
suggest, not surprisingly, that the greater
the demands on the employed woman's time,
the more likely she is to "dovetail" house­hold
productive activities.
Valuation Techniques
Stafford and Sanik used data on household
food production activities in two-parent,
two-child families in Syracuse, N.Y. , to
demonstrate the feasibility of the product­accounting
approach to estimating the value
of household production. Product-accounting
estimates are calculated by summing the
prices of market goods and services compa­rable
to goods and services produced at
home. This method is most useful when the
market offers close substitutes for compo­nents
of home production, as is the case
with food production.
Stafford and Sanik compared product­accounting
estimates of the value of home
food production to estimates derived from
alternative income-accounting approaches,
including the replacement-cost method, the
substitute-labor-cost method, and the
opportunity-cost method, (see box on p. 33).
They concluded that the product-accounting
methods generate value estimates that are
useful for assessing the efficiency of
resource use and the substitution of home­produced
goods for market goods. Income­accounting
methods, which tend to be based
on restrictive assumptions, generate
estimates of the economic contributions of
JZ /F a mily Econ omics Rev i ew I 198Z(J)
home producers to their families and to the
economy.
The Ohio researchers found that the
average daily market cost of food prepared
and served at home was lower in families
with employed homemakers than in those with
nonemployed homemakers, reflecting greater
food consumption away from home in families
with working women. Market-cost estimates
were unrelated to age of the younger child,
location of residence, husband's education,
wife's education, sex of children, or
family income.
Implications
The methodological problems associated
with definition, measurement, and valuation
in household production research are inter­related.
The definition given household
production influences the methodology used
to measure the process and the valuation
technique used to assess the products. The
extent to which household production activ­ities
can be measured limits the possibili­ties
for valuation.
The Beutler-Owen definitions of household
activities suggest that much of what is
produced in the home has no specific market
analogue, yet this production is a valuable
part of the household production process.
In fact, they suggest that there are com­ponents
of household activities (nonre­placeable
home production) for which . a
large part of value is dependent on the
fact that the production cannot be easily
replaced by the market. Their model implies
that much of what is produced in the home
has value because of the interpersonal re­lationships
between the producer and the
consumer. Thus, a fully developed definition
of household production has quantifiable
and nonquantifiable components.
The work of Steeves et al. demonstrated
that the job of homemaking is sufficiently
demanding and complex, especially for em­ployed
women, that it may require that many
tasks be done simultaneously. That appar­ently
is especially true in households with
young children, where interactive care of
family members accompanies many other pro­ductive
activities. Measurement of time
spent in primary household activities tends
t.o mask the intensity of household work
done in many families. Applying the Beutler-
Two basic income-accounting approaches used to estimate the economic value of time
used in household production are market-cost methods and opportunity-cost methods.
Market-cost methods estimate the cost of acquiring household services through the paid
labor force. Opportunity-cost methods estimate the income that is foregone by home­makers
who engage in unpaid household work rather than paid employment.
Market-cost methods are based on the assumption that household work has a close
counterpart in the market. V9.!uation is calculated either by the "replacement-cost"
technique, in which the general wage rate for domestic and service workers is applied
to the entire job of homemaking, or by the "specialist- or substitute-labor-cost" tech­nique,
in which the wage rates applicable to each component of the job of homemaking
are used. Market-cost methods are the most common means of estimating the economic
value of home production. The methods have been criticized because the efficiency of
home producers and market workers may vary, thereby reducing the applicability of
market wages to home production.
Opportunity-cost methods are based on the assumptions that household members divide
their productive time in such a way as to receive the same value from their last hour
of paid employment as they receive from their last hour of household work and that they
have the opportunity to choose between paid employment and household work. The value
of the time that employed persons spend in household production is calculated by use of
the wage rate they earn in paid employment. The calculation for nonemployed persons is
more complicated. The potential market wage for nonemployed persons is estimated from
the average wage rates earned by persons with similar characteristics. This imputed
wage is then used to calculate the value of time spent in household work by nonemployed
persons. Under some opportunity-cost methods, actual and imputed wage rates are
adjusted for taxes and the expenses incurred in working. These adjustments lower the
estimated value of household production. Opportunity-cost methods have been criticized
because they assign to the same work significantly different estimated values when
performed by workers with different characteristics.
Owen model of home activities to the Steeves
analysis of simultaneous activities in
employed women's families indicates that
much household production may occur simul­taneous
to nonreplaceable home production.
Part of that production might be easily
measured and quantified, but nonreplaceable
home production, such as parent-child
interaction, is not easily measured.
The product-accounting valuation tech­nique
tested by Stafford and Sanik offers a
way to value the products of the productive
process that is independent of the complex
inputs to that process. This valuation
method may be especially valuable when
households are trying to determine how best
to direct their productive efforts.
These three methodological studies suggest
that research in household production can
go beyond the analysis of time spent in
various household activities. Household
activities can be delineated into categories
of measureable production, nonreplaceable
productive activity, and consumption.
Simultaneous activities can be measured and
assessed. Household production activities,
if replaceable in the market, can be valued
on the basis of the outputs of the process
rather than on the inputs. Possibly new
methods for studying household production
can generate research that would help fami­lies
use their productive resources to best
meet their goals.
19820) If amily Economics Review I"
Sources of Time-Use Data for
Estimating the Value of
Household Production
Two sources of time-use data are used to
estimate the economic value of household
production. Data collected by Cornell Uni­versity
researchers 1 in 1967-68 from 1,378
families living in Syracuse, New York, were
used with 1979 wage rates to estimate eco­nomic
value by the specialist-cost technique
(see box in "New Methods for Studying
Household Production," p. 33). Similarly,
researchers at the Bureau of Economic
Analysis used data collected by the Survey
Research Center at the University of
Michigan in 1975-76 from a national sample
of 1, 391 households to estimate value by
the specialist-cost technique (see article
by Peskin, p. 16). The methods of collect­ing
data and estimating value were similar
in both studies, but the final estimates
differ somewhat. Estimates based on the
Syracuse data are higher than those
reported for the national sample.
There are several reasons for the differ­ences
in estimates. First, the studies
covered different time periods. There is
some evidence that time-use patterns have
shifted over the decade and wage rates have
increased rapidly. Second, the samples in
each study were different. The 1967-68 data
were collected in an urban area in the
Northeast from a sample of husband-wife
families. The 1975-76 sample was represen­tative
of all households in the United States.
This difference in sample coverage potent­ially
influenced the patterns and degree of
household production observed, as well as
the ability to aggregate the findings and
apply them to all U.s. households.
Finally, the types of work included as
household production differed slightly
between the two studies and resulted in
different estimates of value.
1Gauger, William H., and Kathryn E.
Walker, 1973, The dollar value of household
work, Information Bulletin 60, New York
State College of Human Ecology, Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y.
J•/F"amily Economics Review/19820)
Js the Modern Housewife
a Lady of Leasure?,
"In most masculine eyes--and even in
some feminine--the average housewife today
is a Cinderella in modern dress. The magic
wand of the Industrial Revolution is sup­posed
to have transformed her from a house­hold
drudge into a lady of leisure. On
every hand the opinion is heard that she
has ceased to be a 'producer,' that insofar
as she still has a job, it is that of director
of consumption. According to this view,
another wave or two of the wand will imperil
her very existence. Her early demise as an
occupational type would seem inevitable.
"In the long run this prediction as to
the housewife's fate will probably prove
correct. For her fairy godmother seems to
have no intention of ceasing to lighten her
burdens. Every year, every month, sees a
further increase in the use of ready-cooked
food, ready-made clothing, ready-washed
laundry, even ready-trained children--and
this despite our almost violent prejudice
in favor of the home product.
"But we appear to have overestimated the
speed at which the transformation has been
taking place. We have been so absorbed in
watching the changes in the home that our
ideas as to what has already happened have
gotten somewhat ahead of the event; we gaze
into the future and think we are viewing
the present. In the days of our great­grandchildren
the housewife may be as ex­tinct
as the dodo. But at the present time
some 26,000,000 hale and hearty followers
of the trade might rise and announce in the
words of Mark Twain, 'The reports of my
death have been greatly exaggerated. 1
" •••• In view of the transfer from the home
of the spinning and weaving and sewing, the
butchering, baking and candlestick-making
of our great-grandmother's day, in view of
the decrease in the size of the family and
of the smaller and more convenient houses
in which we now live, why is it that so
many homemakers are still overworked?
1Excerpts taken from article, by Hildegarde
Kneeland, senior home economist, Bureau of
Home Economics, U.S. Department of Agricul­ture,
in The Survey, 1929, 62(5): 301-336.
"A partial answer is undoubtedly to be
found in the regrettable fact that our great­grandmothers
were even more overworked.
Even more important, perhaps, is the fact
that a larger share of the work of the home
was formerly done by other members of the
household. Not only were there more fami­lies
employing hired help, but more had
grandmothers, unmarried sisters, unmarried
daughters living and working in the home.
Much of the gain which the Industrial Revo­lution
has so far brought has gone into
reducing the work of the household to a
one-worker job ••••
" •••• The opinion is often heard that while
the housekeeping tasks have diminished, the
work of managing the family income and
caring for children according to modern
standards has greatly increased. From the
standpoint of the homemaker's responsibility,
this is undoubtedly true. But as far as the
demands upon her time are concerned, the
evidence seems to be against it •••• It is the
routine housework--the provision of meals,
the care of the house, the laundering and
mending--that still requires the bulk of
the homemaker's time. She is still predomi­nately
a housekeeper, rather than a
household manager.
"Yet another reason is sometimes advanced
for the fact that the modern housewife is
still so busy. According to these critics,
she has wasted the freedom brought by the
Industrial Revolution in inefficiency and
elaboration of work. Even the farm home­maker
with several young children would now
have plenty of leisure, they claim, if she
would organize her work as well as her
great- grandmother did and adopt the old time
simple standards of housekeeping.
"Now, there is no question that greater
efficiency in housework and greater empha­sis
upon essentials would do much to lighten
the homemaker's burdens. But if we remove
the rosy spectacles through which we are
apt to view the past, it is not at all cer­tain
that we would find there the model for
which we are seeking. Concerning our great­grandmother's
skill in managing her time we
have, after all, very little knowledge.
History does not reveal her substitute for
a time schedule. Of her standards of house-keeping,
however, we have some evidence.
And when we recall the cakes and pies, the
pickles and preserves that graced her
table, her starched linens and ruffled
petticoats, and the intricate construction
of her gowns and bonnets, we may well
wonder whether our progress has been
wholly in the direction of greater
elaboration!
"Whatever may have been true of our
great- grandmother's day, this much is
certain: the primary problem of a large
proportion of homemakers is still how to
cut down their hours of work to a
reasonable number ••••
'"Let her husband share the work with
her,' the feminist suggests. But quite aside
from the possibly undue optimism concerning
the husband's acceptance of this plan, can
we consider it as anything more than a tem­porary
makeshift? Can we look forward with
any satisfaction to a way of life in which
husband and wife prepare a hasty breakfast
before dashing off to work, and return home
at the end of the day to prepare dinner,
wash dishes, and do the cleaning and laun­dering?
Many of us have seen it tried.
Some of us have tried it. And it is not our
idea of a satisfactory home life, even for
the family without children.
"It is possible, of course, that the
number of part-time jobs for women may
increase. But usually even these jobs will
require regular, consecutive hours of work
--and three meals a day and the emergency
needs of the family play havoc with such
standard hours. Many of the homemakers
with too much leisure, moreover, are 'post­graduate
mothers,' who find it difficult to
get any jobs at all, since their years of
full-time homemaking will have put them out
of the running in the business and profes­sional
world. One of the most difficult
aspects of this whole problem of the house­wife's
time is the variation in the amount
of her homemaking work at different periods
in her married life ••••
"The conclusion seems inevitable, then,
that the time spent by married women in
housekeeping must be reduced--reduced not
only for those who are overworked to a
reasonably-sized job, but reduced as well
for many others to a leisure-job--a job which
can be done by the homemaker outside of
1982(J) /Family Economics Review/JS
regular working hours, a job in many cases
so small as not to be properly classed as a
job at all.
"What are the methods by which these
reductions can be made? •••
"The employment of 'hired help,' of course
is the easiest method from the standpoint
of the individual homemaker. But it is a
method which few families can afford. Only
about 5 per cent of the homes of the coun­try
now employ paid workers, and there is
little reason to expect that this number
will greatly increase in the future. And
fortunately so. There is no surer way of
post paning a real solution of the home­maker's
time problem than by foisting it on
the shoulders of the unskilled worker ••••
"For most homemakers, however, the cost
of even an unskilled employee is prohibitive.
And many who could afford to pay for help
find the disadvantages outweighing the ad­vantages.
What promise can they hope to
find in the second method of reducing the
demands of their housekeeping--in the new
techniques and devices for increasing
household efficiency? •••
"But even in this most promising field,
the possibilities are after all limited.
Finding 'the one best way' for even a
simple domestic job is a difficult and time­consuming
matter, requiring much skill and
still more patience •••• And using 'the one
best way' consistently and with reasonable
speed, once it is found, requires more
frequent repetition of the task and more
uniform conditions of work than even the
thrice-daily routine of dishwashing pro­vides.
The most the housewife can hope to
achieve is a rough standardization, the
elimination of the most glaring wastes in
her use of time and effort. And even these
limited gains will probably be made by a
very small proportion of homemakers ••••
"Much more promise, probably, lies in the
labor-saving house and in household equip­ment.
For here the initiative rests largely
with the builder, manufacturer, and high
pressure salesman--and they are determined
to rescue the homemaker from her drudgery.
For the farm woman especially, and for all
homemakers who are overworked, this seems
the most hopeful solution. But the cost of
a large assortment of household appliances,
)6/family Economics Review/1982(3)
most of which must stand idle most of the
time, will greatly restrict their use. And in
even the most fully equipped house, house­keeping
cannot be reduced to a leisure-time
job, if the homemaker prepares the meals
herself and does her own cleaning and
laundering ••••
"It is this method, of course, which has
brought the major reduction in housekeeping
in the last fifty years. And in spite of
our antagonism, it is probably the method
which will bring the greatest reduction in
the coming half century. The equipment
salesmen may win out in the next ten or
twenty years, but by the time the machinery
which they are about to sell us becomes
obsolete, the commercial laundry, the com­mercial
housecleaning service, and finally
that still most unsatisfactory agency, the
commercial meal-provider, will probably have
won us over as their customers, just as the
clothing manufacturer, the canner, and the
baker already have done. We do not like the
idea now. A few years ago we did not like
the idea of ready-made clothing. Our
capacity to change our likes, to adjust to
changed economic and social conditions, is
probably not at an end."
CRIS Reporta-NE-113
USE OF TIME IN RURAL AND
URBAN F AMILIES1
Project Number: NE-113 (Regional)
Contact Person:
Dr. Geraldine Olson
School of Home Economics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oreg. 97330
503-754-4992
Cooperating States:2
California, Connecticut, Louisiana, New
York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Utah,
Virginia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Texas.
1NE-113, "Interstate Urban/Rural
Comparison of Families' Time Use," was
revised and retitled.
2North Carolina will not participate in
the revised project; Ohio did not take part
in data collection.
Starting Date: January 1, 1982
Termination Date: September 30, 1984
Objectives:
Compare similarities and differences in
use of time in work (household, paid, and
volunteer) among rural and urban popula­tions
in various geographic area!; in the
United States.
Analyze patterns of time use, with
attention to rural-urban differences, using
the data base collected under the original
NE-113 project.
Findings:
A summary of results from the NE-113
project through 1980 is available in the
summer 1981 issue of Family Economics
Review (see "Time Use and Family Life," by
Karen P. Goebel, p. 20-25).
Additional work not included in this
article is reported from New York and North
Carolina. Both States are studying the
relationship between wage rates of the
spouses, and how wage rates affect the time
spent in household work by husbands and
wives.
Selected Publications: 3
1. Cogle, F. L., and G. E. Tasker. 1981.
Children: An untapped resource for
building family strengths. In N.
Stinnett, J. DeFrain, P. Knaub, K.
King, and G. Rowe, editors. Family
Strengths 3: Roots of Well Being.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
2. , D. W. Beakley, and B. B.
McFatter. 1981. Home responsibilities:
Are they still "her" job? Journal of
Extension, vol. 19, p. 13-17.
3. Goebel, K. P., and C. B. Hennon. [In
press. 1 An empirical investigation
among wife's employment status, stage
in the family life cycle, meal prepara­tion
time, and expenditures for meals
away from home. Journal of Consumer
Studies and Home Economics.
3Taken from NE-113, "Interstate
Urban/Rural Comparison of Families."
4. McCullough, J. L. 1981. Time Use in
Utah Families. Research Report No. 57.
Utah Agricultural Experiment Station,
Logan.
5. Nickols, S. Y., and K. D. Fox. 1980.
Time use in Oklahoma families. Oklahoma
Families. Family Study Center, Oklahoma
State University, Stillwater.
6. O'Neill, B. M. 1979. Children sharing
household work. Human Ecology Forum
10(1): 18-21.
7. Ortiz, B., M. McDonald, N. Ackerman,
and K. P. Goebel. 1981. The effects of
homemaker's employment on meal
preparation time, meals at home, and
meals away from home. Home Economics
Research Journal 9(3):200-206.
8. Sanik, M. M. 1981. Division of household
work: A decade comparison 1967-1977.
Home Economics Research Journal
10(2):175-180.
Households and Families,
March 1981
Of the estimated 82.4 million households in
the United States in March 1981, 73 percent
were family households (maintained by two
or more persons who are related and living
together). Since 1970, the total number of
households has increased by 30 percent:
family households by 17 percent, and non­family
households (maintained by persons
living alone or with other unrelated persons)
by 85 percent.
Married-couple families with own children
under 18 decreased by 2.4 _percent between
1970 and 1981; in contrast, single-parent
families with own children under 18
increased over 95 percent.
One-person households increased from 17
percent of all households in 1970 to 23
percent in 1981. Persons per household
averaged 2. 73 in 1981, compared with 3.14
in 1970.
Source: U.s. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, 1981, Households and
families, by type: March 1981 (advance
report), Current Population Reports, Popula­tion
Characteristics, Series P-20, No. 367.
1982(:5)/Family Economics Review/J7