Women who are living with men tend to do more housework than women living alone or with other women. A recent study by Scott South and Glenna Spitze shows that once they take into account the presence of children and others and characteristics of the partners, married women spend 14 hours more than married men do. Women who are cohabiting spend about ten hours more on housework than cohabiting men. On this dimension, then, cohabitation would seem to be a better deal for women than marriage. Some economists, however, would argue that husbands compensate their wives for their time in work for the family by sharing their income with them, while cohabiting women generally don't share their partner's earnings, so they may be doing extra housework without extra pay.
Married couples link their fates-including their finances.
This is a more attractive proposition if one's intended has a decent income and few debts. LingXin Hao, writing in Social Forces, shows that among all families with children, cohabiting couples have the lowest average level of wealth, comparable to families headed by a single mother. Intact two-parent families and stepfamilies have the highest level of wealth, followed at a distance by families headed by a single father. Unlike single-parent families, cohabiting couples have two potential earners, so their very low levels of wealth are less expected. But expected or not, they are a cause for concern, especially for the children living in these families.