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91 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1 (1996-1997)
Turning Labor into Love: Housework and the Law

handle is hein.journals/illlr91 and id is 21 raw text is: Copyright 1996 by Northwestern University, School of Law        Printed in U.S.A.
Northwestern University Law Review                                VoL 91, No. 1
ARTICLES
TURNING LABOR INTO LOVE: HOUSEWORK
AND THE LAW
Katharine Silbaugh*
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ..........................................           3
II. HOUSEWORK IN SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS ..........                   8
A. Housework in Sociology ............................           8
1. Time Use Studies: Housework Is Still Women's
W ork  ...........................................       8
2. Measurement Criteria and Their Meaning For
W om  en  .........................................    10
3. Possible Determinants of the Difference in
Men's and Women's Household Labor .........            13
4. What Makes the Distribution of Home Labor
Problematic? ....................................      14
5. An Intellectual History Within Sociology:
Housework Becomes Work in the Work-Leisure
D ivide  ..........................................    15
B. Economics and Housework .........................            17
1. The Value of Housework .......................           17
2. An Intellectual History Within Economics: The
Home Is Not Just for Consumption .............         18
C. Transformed Conceptions of Housework in
Sociology and Economics and a Static Conception
of Housework in Law ...............................        21
III. HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF HOUSEWORK ...............                21
A. The Origins of the Paid-Unpaid Labor Divide ......           22
* Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law. J.D., University of Chi-
cago Law School, 1992; B.A. Amherst College, 1985. I thank Anne Alstott, Hugh Baxter, Jack
Beermann, Daniela Caruso, Jane Maslow Cohen, Elizabeth Clark, Nancy Eisenhauer, Alan Feld,
Elizabeth Foote, Anne Gowen, Michael Harper, Daniel Jurayj, Daniel Klerman, Susan Koniak,
Pnina Lahav, Ellen Leary, Lawrence Lessig, Tracey Meares, Eric Posner, Richard A. Posner,
Dylan Sanders, Ann Seidman, Robert Seidman, David Seipp, Reva B. Siegel, Nancy Staudt,
Manuel Utset, Alex Whiting, and Larry Yackle for helpful comments on earlier drafts. I thank
Lisa Bonner, Heather Hostetter, Marie-Flore Johnson, Lorraine Jones, and Maria Lopotukhin
for extensive research assistance.

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