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Happiest Couples Share Work Equally

So much for Ozzie and Harriet. The traditional division of household labor involving men working outside the home and women within is not the happiest model for today's couples. Rather, research at the University of Western Ontario has found it's couples who split both paid work and unpaid work about equally that report the highest levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

Researchers looked at data on Canadian households for the years 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2005 and identified five models for the division of labor: Complementary-traditional, where the wife is doing more unpaid work and husband more paid work, accounted for about one-third of couples, while the opposite, complementary-gender-reversed, involved the husband is doing more unpaid work and wife more paid work and accounted for just three percent of couples. Women’s double burden, which involved the wife is doing the same amount of, or more, paid work, and more unpaid work, accounted for 25 percent of couples. Men’s double burden, in which the husband is doing the same amount of, or more, paid work, and more unpaid work, accounted for ten percent of couples. Shared roles, with the wife and husband doing the same amount of unpaid work, accounted for another quarter of couples.

The shared roles model was most common in couples who were younger, had more resources and were less religious. The availability of resources such as good quality childcare also increased the likelihood of families choosing this model.