Orbuch and Eyster (1997) conducted

Orbuch and Eyster (1997) conducted a panel survey to learn how Black and White couples divide household labor. Their respondents were 199 Black couples and 174 White couples who applied for marriage licenses in a Michigan county in 1986. They considered only same-race couples in a first marriage in which the woman was under 35 years old. Same-race interviewers interviewed all couples in their homes twice. The first interview was 4 to 9 months after marriage, a second was two years later. Of the original couples, 12 percent had divorced and 16 percent moved and could not be located for the second interview. A total of 264 couples were interviewed both times. The researchers looked at couples' norms on gender equality and participation in different household tasks (e.g., meal preparation, doing dishes, doing laundry, etc.), and considered levels of education, income, and work outside the home. They assessed the impacts of gender norms, wife's resources, and race on how cdiijSles divided household labor.
The researchers found that the wife's resources (education and income) and equality Inorms promoted a more equal division of tasks. The premarital resources that wives brought into the marriage had few long-term effects,but as wives gained more resources during marriage, the division of labor became more equal. Black couples were more egalitarian than White couples, both in norms arid in the division of labor. In general, white husbands were more resistant to housework and child care than