ways of measuring role satisfaction (i.e., between the general satisfaction questions in

each subsection and the role satisfaction score computed by noting differences between

couples' current division of labor and what they would like); they noted this relatively

weak correlation suggests the two measures may be assessing different aspects of

satisfaction. In the present study, only the global assessment of satisfaction was included

for analysis. Although examination of both approaches to measuring satisfaction would

be beneficial, limiting analysis to only the global satisfaction assessment reflects the

resources available for conducting this study. Of the two approaches to measuring role

satisfaction, the global satisfaction assessment appears to be more relevant as it has been

more strongly related to outcome measures of marital adaptation than the measure of

actual-ideal discrepancies (C. P. Cowan & Cowan, 1988). The role satisfaction score was

renamed the role dissatisfaction score for the purpose of clarity in the current study, as

higher scores indicate more role dissatisfaction and less satisfaction.

 For the purpose of this study, partners' individual scores for task differentiation and

for role dissatisfaction were converted to produce "couple" scores. Couple scores were

used since a limitation of previous research has been the lack of comparison between

partners' scores in data analysis, and the aim of this study was to analyze patterns at the

relational level rather than the individual level. For both the task differentiation scores (of

family household tasks and child-related tasks) and the role dissatisfaction score, couple

scores were computed using the following equation developed by Lavee and Olson

(1993):

 h+w k h-w
 2 2