The Family Responsibility Index: a behavioral measure of marital work allocation

An instrument was developed to measure behaviorally the division of family-role responsibilities between spouses. Currently available marital role inventories, attitudinal scales and sex role surveys represent inadequate or inappropriate methods for measuring actual performance. The Family Responsibility Index (FRI) was designed to assess a spouse's degree of behavioral participation in 54 specific tasks divided among 10 areas of typical family responsibilities. A balance of traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine tasks was approximated. Sixty-one dual career family couples completed the instrument in two separate administrations. Results showed moderately high reliability of report between spouses and acceptable concurrent validity.