Sharing Chores May Contribute to Relationship Happiness

This program originally aired on 4-16-18 Who does the dishes in your household? The answer to that question may reveal quite a lot about your relationships and level of happiness. On this Talk of Iowa, Charity Nebbe chats with Dan Carlson, assistant professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah. A report he co-authored for the Council on Contemporary Families was recently featured in The Atlantic . Ann Oberhauser, professor of sociology and director of women's and gender studies at Iowa State University, and Barbara Dunn Swanson, human sciences specialist for Iowa State University Extension, also join the conversation. The division of labor in domestic chores has changed over the past 20 years. "In the early 90s, for these routine indoor tasks, about 85% of couples had women doing the majority of these tasks," Carlson says. "Less than 15% were sharing." Now, the percentage of couples sharing tasks has doubled. Dishes, in particular, became a source of strife as