What do we know about housework?

Chapter 1 serves as the introduction to the book. While housework is a frequent object of scholarly inquiry, in part because of its ubiquitous appearance across household types, we argue that it can be used to understand more than simply who does what around the house. Housework provides insight into the power dynamics in intimate relationships. After explaining resource-based and social psychological/symbolic perspectives for understanding the division of housework, the chapter concludes with a detailed summary of the remainder of the book.