The work that moved

In 1900 the prime-age woman of the median household worked 46.8C a week in the home, unpaid. Here is the first surprise of the record: it barely moved for two-thirds of a century. The 1950 room still has her at 41.5C — a decline so slow it looks like a law of nature.

The machines had arrived long before the hours moved. By 1950, 94.0%A of households had electric light and 80.0%A had mechanical refrigeration. The equipped home and the working week coexisted for a full generation — the appliances were already ordinary while the routine around them was not yet different.

Then the cliff. By 1975 the figure was 32.1C — the steepest decade on this chart. The Men's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1950 line rises gently across the same decades, but nowhere near enough to absorb what moved. Where did the hours go? Partly into the paid second earner, partly into standards: the freezer kept, the laundry shrank, and the dividend was spent on a bigger, better-served house rather than on leisure.

One honesty note at the end of the line. After the two-thousands the museum stops the series on purpose: the survey concept changes there (see the room's Home-production hours: Ramey endpoint vs ATUS (concept splice) exhibit), and plotting the new narrower measure would fake a further fall. The gap drawn at the end of the chart is not missing data. It is the museum declining to publish a spliced number.