This afternoon, I walked over to Bloomberg headquarters at 58th and Lex to hear an author, a former Goldman Sachs (GS) managing director named Sharon Meers, talk about high-achieving men and women and how to stay successful and sane and married all at the same time。

　　下午，我步行至彭博公司(Bloomberg)总部，听一位名叫莎伦•密尔兹(Sharon Meers)的前高盛董事总经理谈论有成就的男男女女如何保持成功和理智，同时婚姻也一直不会亮红灯。

　　Meers co-wrote a book called Getting to 50/50, which was released a few months ago. Lots of fascinating stats, but some of the most intriguing revolved around the male-female balance of work at home. In today’s talk to about 200 Bloombergers (a gender-balanced crowd)， Meers mentioned that when couples share housework, the risk of divorce drops。

　　密尔兹与人共同撰写了一本名叫《两性相处》(Getting to 50/50)的书，这本书在几个月前刚刚发行，其中有很多非常好的数据统计，不过最吸引人的地方是围绕着男女家务平衡方面的。在面对200名彭博员工(男女数量相等)的谈话中，密尔兹提到当夫妇分担家务时，离婚的风险就会下降。

　　Divorce risk drops sharply when the wife has a job. The ideal set-up is when the man earns 60% of the income and does 40% of the housework. That’s when divorce risk is lowest of all。

　　当妻子有一份工作时，离婚风险将会显著下降。最完美的结构是丈夫赚取家中60%的收入，而做40%的家务。这个时候离婚风险是最低的。

　　(The sex is also better then, by the way. When men do substantial housework, couples have more frequent and satisfying sex. Meers shared this factoid privately, and she lays it all out in her book, in a section called “When He Does Windows…”)

　　(顺便说一下，这个时候性生活也会更好。当丈夫分享了一定量的家务后，夫妻的性生活将更频繁并且令人满意。密尔兹私下分享了这一点，并且在她书中名叫“当他擦窗户的时候……”的章节中也有展开。)

　　And where in the world do men do the most to help their wives at home? Meers doesn’t have those stats, but I found them, coincidentally, yesterday in a preview of another book due out in September. Women Want More, by Boston Consulting Group senior partner Michael Silverstein, is a marketer’s guide to capturing “the world’s largest and fastest-growing market。” As part of the research for the book, BCG asked 12,000 women in 22 countries a battery of 120 questions. And among the rich findings…

　　世界上哪里的男人尽最大努力帮助他们在家的妻子呢？密尔兹没有这些数据，不过很凑巧，昨天在另一本9月将发行的新书预告中，我找到了答案。这本名叫《女人想要更多》(Women Want More)的作者是波士顿咨询集团(Boston Consulting Group，BCG)高级合伙人迈克尔•斯乌尔斯坦(Michael Silverstein)，它从市场营销人员角度对争夺“世界上最大、增长最快的市场”做出了指导。作为本书调查的一部分，BCG询问了来自22个国家的12，000位妇女连续120个问题。

　　“At least one-third of men never help their wives/partners with chores,” according to the BCG survey. Where do men do the least housework? Japan. Indian men do the most. And American men? They come somewhere in between, though closer to India than Japan。

　　BCG的调查显示“至少1/3的男人从不帮忙做家务”。世界上哪里的男人做家务最少呢？日本。而印度人做得最多。那美国人呢？他们处在中间，更接近印度人而不是日本人。

　　By the way, chores cause more domestic arguments than anything else except money–at least in the U.S., the BCG survey suggests. In Europe, BCG found, chores are the No. 1 trigger of domestic arguments。

　　另外，BCG的调查显示：家务活是仅排在金钱之后，最能造成家庭纠纷的---至少在美国是这样。而在欧洲，BCG调查得出，家务活在造成家庭纠纷上处于首位。

　　That doesn’t surprise author Meers. “Among people over 40,” she says, “two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women. And studies show that 80% of the fights are about housework。”

　　这些数据并不让密尔兹感到惊讶。她说：“在40岁以上的人群中，2/3的离婚都是由女人提出的。并且研究表明80%的冲突都是由家务引起的。”