How husbands and wives share things to do (2) : Changes of power relations due to wive's getting employed

This study examined (a) the changes of power relations between husbands and wives and (b) the divisions of their domestic duties due to wives' getting employed. The subjects in this survey were 223 saleswomen of an insurance company who started their work after the marriage. They answered the ways how husbands and wives make their divisions as to the 14 domestic decisions and the ways 15 domestic duties being allocated before and after wives' employment. Being employed wives became to make more domestic decisions and took less part in the domestic duties than before. Those wives who had a higher financial contribution to their home budget had greater decision power and took part in more such kinds of domestic duties as were rated husbands' or cooperative jobs. Decision power and the allocation of domestic duties correlated neither with the reasons of starting work nor with the time of employment by the day. As to the power relations between husbands and wives, those wives who showed wife dominance pattern tended to allocate more domestic duties to the husbands than those who showed the other three patterns; autonomic, syncretic and husband dominance