Wie verändert sich die häusliche Arbeitsteilung im Eheverlauf – oder: was kann man wie schlussfolgern?

Using the Bamberg study of married couples Schulz and Blossfeld (2006) analyze the change in the division of domestic labor and see a trend toward traditionalization. Hereby the economic theory of the family should be falsified. This result is critized in three perspectives: first, a stronger participation of men is used as the dependent variable whereby the interesting processes are misspecified. Second, only the educations of men and women, but not changes in education are looked at which would be necessary to test the economic theory. Third, the used statistical model makes some simplifications necessary which hardens the interpretation of the empirical results. With all these critics the economic theory of the family should not be defended blindly, but a test of this theory is not possible in the manner tried here.