Abstract
This paper fills the gap through theoretical reasoning and empirical testing of the effects of housework on job performance. Guided by the time allocation theory, the study proposed an optimization model based on the household production function, which indicates that an increase of time spent on housework will improve individual job performance with a progressive increase in the marginal return of housework time to household production. A field study using assembly-line workers in a Chinese manufacturing factory partially supported the proposition, suggesting that workers with longer housework time have accumulated higher character skills, particularly female workers.