most of the domestic work. European men are more likely to play and interact with their children but not likely to participate fully in their daily care. They are more likely to help their wives at home, yet rarely do they tackle all domestic task equally. Men commonly fail to live up to their belief of equal sharing of domestic labor: they may believe in an equal workload in the house, but the inconvenience of taking on work done by their wives stops many from following through. Also, domestic labor ("housework") has been traditionally defined as "welfare" related activities, such as cooking and cleaning. However, married men generally contribute more to household and material maintenance, construction, and repair activities that are not usually captured under domestic obligations. Middle-class vs. poor families Middle-class families Middle-class families often use substitutes for domestic work to make up for the lost time while working in the paid sector. They buy time taking care of children by using hired help and day-care centers. They also decrease the burden of paid work and unpaid work by using household appliances such as microwaves, laundry machines, and dishwashers, as well as buying pre-made food, eating out and using laundry services. Poor families Poor families are much more constrained in their economic ability to "buy back" lost time through the market. Instead of buying market substitutes, they try to meet their needs without spending money by taking care of children instead of hiring help, taking care of the sick instead of taking them to the hospital, and making food from scratch instead of buying pre-made food. The way that poor families deal with the time debt is for the main caretaker to intensify the time that they spend working, by doing multiple jobs at once instead of doing one job at a time. When people increase the intensity of their work to compensate for their lack of time to finish everything that needs to get done, called work intensity, many health problems occur. Effects Health effects Stress When faced with the double burden of having to deal with the responsibilities of both a career as well as domestic duties, sometimes a person's health is affected. Many people faced with these circumstances have a higher chance of being sick since health and stress seem to be correlated, as stress has been implicated in up to eighty percent of all illnesses,