The Five Classes

Abstract

Chapter 4 presents findings from couple-level data from the National Study of Families and Households (Wave 1). We employ latent profile analysis to describe categories, or classes, of couples. We found that couples fell into five categories: Ultra-traditional, Traditional, Transitional Husbands, Egalitarian, and Egalitarian High Workload. This chapter presents the profiles of each of these classes of couples based upon their joint division of labor. The analysis is unique in that we use self-reported data from each spouse in order to document patterns across the 3,906 couples for whom we have complete data.