Obviously, this plays out really different based on your class background or the type of relationship you are in, but consistently, both in my experience, the experience of my peers and others, the majority of house work falls on the shoulders of women. It is the assumed default position, that if it isn't done, than guess who is going to end up doing it.

Who is expected to do what in the household is extremely political and it isn't just a matter of convenience or someone whining more than the other. It is based on a historical division of labor that is the crux of the nation. Furthermore, when middle class women do not have the time to clean their houses, who do they hire to clean them? So still, today, the majority of house cleaning is done by women and mostly women of color. 

The technology industry claims the United States doesn't produce enough technologists. This claim is specious at best. Wages for information technology workers have been relatively flat while the career risks for the profession have skyrocketed. The industry's track record of attracting female and underrepresented minorities to technical professions has been woeful. By giving the industry a steady diet of cheap labor, there is no reason for companies to expand the domestic talent pool they draw from and invest in American workers to fill these jobs. And it also gives the companies ample opportunities to replace older workers with younger ones, fueling age discrimination.

A more sensible set of solutions would be twofold. First, significantly increase investments in U.S. students and underemployed workers so they can fill these job openings. Second, let the market work. If technology workers are as scarce as companies claim, then wages would be bid up and talented workers would choose engineering instead of more lucrative and safe fields in finance, medicine or law.

Of all these countries, the United States is, by far, the richest. And you would think that, as our wealth grew and our productivity increased, a certain amount of our resources would go into, well, us. Into leisure. Into time off. You would think that we'd take advantage of the fact that we can create more wealth in less time to wrest back some of those hours for ourselves and our families. But instead, the exact opposite has happened.

This would all be fine if it were what we wanted. But that doesn't seem to be the case. One famous 1996 study asked associates at major law firms which world they'd prefer: The one they resided in, or one in which they took a 10% pay cut in return for a 10% reduction in hours worked. They overwhelmingly preferred the latter. Elsewhere, economists have given individuals sets of choices pitting leisure against goods. Leisure doesn't always win out, but it is certainly competitive. Yet we're pumping ever more hours into work, seeking ever-higher incomes to fund ever-greater consumption. Why?