Jim Eaton wrote: "Doesn't the work of Becker and others suggest that social phenomena not evidently grounded in choice are in fact so grounded and therefore not out of bounds for economists to study?" Becker's work is roundly criticized for circularity of reasoning. His later version of new household economics is improved, but the basic problem is that choice theory has to assume that the 'choices' people make are somehow rational. [Sen's rational fools?] So the sexual division of labor is optimal in a sense, because whatever choices women make, i.e. not taking on long hours of work and thus not climbing the career ladders like men, is what is most rational for them, because women's incomes on the average are smaller and household income is thus maximized. This doesn't take the explanation very far if it ignores that either women are socialized to do so, the workplaces are not structured to recognize society's needs for reproduction of species and thus are not concerned about women workers' particular responsibilities, or without really equal participation in the domestic tasks from their partners, they have no 'choice' but to end up with smaller earnings. There are other implicit assumptions of such analyses as well. Just ask Larry Summers of Harvard as to why 80-hour work weeks of his male faculty members aren't duplicated by many of their female colleagues :-). My apologies for the long response. Sumitra Shah