The division of marital housework has been a much studied topic among sociologists and family theorists. Empirical articles on the topic often refer to gender roles, martial dependence and the social status of women. Many studies have shown that retirement significantly affects the quality of marriage and communication between spouses (Parron 1978) (Pienta 2003), however there is a limited amount of research that focuses specifically on the effects of paid work on spouses' housework. The article Changes in Housework After Retirement: A Panel Analysis, by Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, uses family systems theory and longitudinal data to demonstrate 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 in relation to the data. To explain Szinovacz's application of systems theory I will first provide a brief background on the article. The objective of the study was to evaluate whether and under what conditions spouses' retirement influenced the time dedicated to housework (Szinovacz 2000). Therefore, housework was the main dependent variable in the study. Specifically, the spouses were asked to indicate how many hours per week they dedicated to the following activities: preparing meals, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, doing outdoor work, shopping, washing and ironing, paying bills, maintenance of the car, family members driving ( 81). After collecting panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households, it was concluded that retirement affects housework, with significant gender differences (89). Szinovacz's hypotheses have used the term "dominance" in multiple accounts to refer to the gender division of...... middle of article ......orks CitedMorgaine, C. (2001). The components of family systems theory. CFS 410U Winter. Retrieved from http://web.pdx.edu/~cbcm/CFS410U/FamilySystemsTheory.pdfParron, E. M. (1978). Golden Wedding Couples: "Effects of Retirement on Intimacy in Long-Term Marriages." Alternative Lifestyles, 1(4), 447. doi:10.1007/BF01083433 Pienta, A. M. (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., & Klein, D. M. (2008). Chapter 6: The structure of systems. In Family Theories (3rd ed., pp. 151-177). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.