s vary according to their spouses attitudes and to be greater where husbands and wives disagree (Lye 1993, 160). Therefore, men and womens roles strongly depend on the expectations and attitudes that they have set in regards to family roles or gender roles. Having different views concerning family life reduces marital satisfaction of the balancing (Lye, 1993, 183). It is locating an equilibrium that couples find difficult to do in regards to family life and gender roles.Even today as women are entering the workforce, Kaufman found that wives do four-fifths of the cooking, laundry, and shopping as well as two-thirds of the child care, cleaning, and dishwashing (Kaufman, 1999, 440). For example, Blair & Lichter found that wives perform 96% of the cooking, 92% of the dishwashing, 90% of the vacuuming, 94% of the bed making, and 94% of the diapering of children (Blair, 1991, 93). At the other end of the scale, Blair and Lichter found that husbands performed 86% of household repairs, 80% of the disciplining of children, 75% of the lawn mowing, and 77% of the snow shovelling (Blair, 1991, 93). These percentages seem rather irrelevant due to the fact that division of household labour is much more than who does what. Blair and Lichter discuss three prominent theories of the division of household labour. They are time availability, power theory, and gender role. The theory of time availability relates to the fact that if a spouse is working full-time outside the home, it is more difficult for he or she to perform the daily household tasks. Blair and Lichter described this theory as the partner with the most available time presumably will assume the greatest share of household duties. Although this theory seems irrelevant in the explanation of why men do less work in the household, it does not explain why women are still doing the same amount even when she works the same hours as her husband.The power theory is a gender segregated theo...
