That is, so that wives can concentrate on doing housework. From the latest paper by Mark Bryan and Almudena Sevilla-Sanz in Oxford Economic Papers journal, it seems that husbands , and even their wives, will have lower wages if they engage in housework while maintaining full-time jobs:
"[H]ousework has a negative impact on the wages of men and women, both married and single, who work full-time. Among women working part-time, only single women suffer a housework penalty. The housework penalty is uniform across occupations within full-time jobs but some part-time jobs appear to be more compatible with housework than others."
It's even worst if they have children.
Now, the authors are clear to point out that the causality may not be one-way as you normally would receive from this finding: "[I]ndividuals with more housework responsibilities may be less career oriented and thus earn lower wages." In other words, they choose to find a less-paying job because they know they'll spend some of their productive time on doing household chores.
Since the world has becoming more and more sophisticated, it's not anymore a traditional view that husbands prefer that their wives concentrate on home and the kids. There's now a bigger economic reason behind such preference.
Either that or just simply hire a maid.
By the way, today's my father's birthday and I find this paper very appropriate for today's post. You see, my mother stayed home and became a housewife. It was a mutual decision between my parents so that my father can concentrate on work while my mother takes care of the household and the children. Fortunately, as it stands, such arrangement turned out well. I find myself and my siblings in good standings. Now, some would say my parents are of the traditional type, but then again, my father kept up with the times (being a clever one that he is) and it was primarily an economic reason that drove my parent's decision.
So, Happy Birthday Pa. Thanks for being an economic thinker.