Mothers who earn more than their spouses frequently take on an even greater share of housework, a study published March 31 found.
Typically, the housework gap widens when a couple has children. Although economic theory suggests that women working more hours or earning more income than their spouses would lead to a more even split of chores, this was not the case in a study of 6,000 heterosexual North American households, according to the study from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
For the study, housework was defined as time spent cooking, cleaning and doing other chores around the house.
"I found that the gender housework gap actually gets bigger for mothers who earned more than their spouses — the more they earned over their partner, the more housework they did," Dr. Joanna Syrda of the University of Bath School of Management told Science Daily.
Dr. Syrda said that the findings may indicate that married couples may be trying to compensate for deviating from the entrenched gender norm of the "male breadwinner."