The distribution of housework between spouses has been a widely studied topic among sociologists and family theorists. Empirical articles on the subject often refer to gender roles, martial dependence, and the societal status of women. Many studies have shown that retirement greatly affects marital quality and communication between spouses (Parron 1978)(Pienta 2003), but there is a limited amount of research that focuses specifically on the effect of paid employment on spouses' household chores. The article Changes in Housework After Retirement: A Panel Analysis, by Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, uses family systems theory and longitudinal data to show that retirees spend more time on housework than continuously working spouses. Ultimately, this article will analyze Szinovacz's use of family systems theory and then provide a critique of the choice of theory over data. In order to explain Szinovacz's application of systems theory, I will first provide a brief history of the article. The objective of the study was to assess whether and under what conditions spouses' retirement influenced their domestic work time (Szinovacz 2000). Thus, domestic work was the main dependent variable of the study. Specifically, spouses were asked to indicate how many hours per week they spent on the following tasks: preparing meals, washing dishes, cleaning the house, outdoor chores, shopping, laundry and ironing, paying bills, maintain the car and drive their family members (81). After gathering panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households, it was concluded that retirement does affect domestic work, with significant gender differences (89). Szinovacz's hypotheses used the term "domain" in several accounts to refer to the sexual division of...... middle of article ......works citedMorgaine, C. (2001). The components of family systems theory. CFS 410U winter. Retrieved from http://web.pdx.edu/~cbcm/CFS410U/FamilySystemsTheory.pdf Parron, E. M. (1978). Golden Wedding Couples: “Effects of Retirement on Intimacy in Long-Term Marriages.” Alternative Lifestyles, 1(4), 447. doi:10.1007/BF01083433Pienta, AM (2003). Partners in marriage: An analysis of the retirement behavior of husbands and wives. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 22(3). doi:10.1177/0733464803253587Szinovacz, M.E. (2000). Changes in housework after retirement: a panel analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(2), 78-92. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1566689?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102935150147White, J.M. and Klein, D.M. (2008). Chapter 6: The systems framework. In Family Theories (3rd ed., pp. 151-177). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.