When wives get sick - Gender role attitudes, marital happiness, and husbands' contribution to household labor

This article examines factors related to husbands' contribution to housewor k when their wives become newly impaired. Data are from a sample of 319 mar ried couples who participated in the National Survey of Families and Househ olds, and in which wives developed physical limitations between baseline an d five-year,follow-up interviews. Using ordinary least squares regression. we found that husbands who have egalitarian attitudes toward marital roles and are happy in their marriage at baseline do more housework at follow-up than husbands who are traditional and/or are less happy. Given the slow rat e of change in household division of labor the lack of public policies to s upport people with impairment and family caregiving disproportionately burd ens women.