Though married women have steadily increased their labor force activity, most continue to do the bulk of the housework. However, due to increases in life expectancy and declines in fertility, homemaking is no longer a lifetime career for women as a group. Without a wife who specializes in...

Work in law and in economics has long suggested that marriages will be more successful if they take advantage of specialization between husband and wife (Becker, 1974). If husbands and wives operate their marriages like trading nations, they could obviously reap large gains from trade if each...