Article: THE SCARY TRUTH ABOUT HOUSEWORK

Forget 50-50. Forget 60-40. Forget "If you fold the laundry, I'll load the dishwasher." No longer do couples have to debate the division of housework. Science has given us an answer, and that answer is 45.8 percent.

Working husbands and wives should each do 45.8 percent of the housework if they want to minimize their personal distress, according to researcher Chloe E. Bird of Brown University in Providence, R.I.

But what about the other 8.4 percent, which presumably includes the jobs that everyone tries to push off on someone else?

That's what kids and maids are for.

In families where one spouse stays at home to manage the house, the ideal split is about 80 percent for the stay-at-home ...

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