Income,Equity,and Wives' Housekeeping Role Expectations

Abstract

Drawing on equity theory, this study examines the effect of spouses' relative incomes (wife's income/ husband's income) on wives' perceptions of the extent to which their husbands should share housekeeping labor. Multiple regression analysis revealed that spouses' relative income has an appreciable positive effect (wives become more egalitarian in their perceptions as their income becomes more equal to their husbands') which persists with controls for eleven variables thought to be relevant to the formation of sex-role expectations. This finding, which is consistent with the equity theory notion that actors expect differerences in outcomes to correspond with differences in inputs, suggests that equity considerations play an important role in shaping wives' expectations concerning the distribution of housekeeping labor.

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