Housewife

A housewife is a woman whose main occupation is running or managing her family's home—caring for and educating her children, cooking and storing food, buying goods the family needs in day-to-day life, cleaning and maintaining the home, making clothes for the family, etc.—and who is generally not employed outside the home. Merriam Webster describes a housewife as a married woman who is in charge of her household. The British Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (1901) defined a housewife as: "the mistress of a household; a female domestic manager; a pocket sewing kit".

The related term homemaker has almost the same meaning but is not limited to women and does not connote marriage.

Sociology and economics

Some feminists and non-feminist economists (particularly proponents of historical materialism) note that the value of housewives' work is ignored in standard formulations of economic output, such as GDP or employment figures. Housewives work many unrecorded hours a week, while depending for money on their husband's or partner's employment.