Swept Under the Carpet: Housework in Families Where the Woman is the Breadwinner

Husbands are reluctant to take on housework responsibility even when wives work full‐time and they themselves do not work. A study of 18 breadwinning wives and 14 of their husbands indicates that this is partly bound up with the low value placed on housework and partly with the need for an identity based on some kind of “purposeful” work. Work completed around the house tended to be of a craft (DIY) nature, consistent with the traditional male domain, and no attempts were made to seek reciprocal child‐caring/mutual help arrangements with other people, either male or female.