In the DIY arena, neither men nor women rule.(NewsMakers: Reporting on the Industry)

In a study conducted by The Integer Group, researchers explored how gender roles affected the planning of a home remodeling task, the purchasing of materials and dividing of labor. What the study found was that men and women basically approached the task in the same manner, for the same reasons, and with the same level of satisfaction from the results.

"What surprised us in this research is how actively involved men were in making decorating decisions, and how active women were in doing the physical work," says Katie Geraty, director of account planning at the Integer Group in Des Moines, Iowa.

The study showed that couples that were working together on a home improvement project approached the task in much the same way. All couples tended to identify the same needs in their homes. They all tended to research a project, although in many different ways and methods, from magazines and the Internet to point-of-sale reviews. All couples felt similarly satisfied with the results of their project upon completion, and that level of satisfaction was generally high and mildly unexpected by both halves of the team.

"We found that men and women were pretty much on the same page when they got to the home improvement store," says Kathleen Atkinson, the primary researcher on the project. "They agreed on colors, textures, styles and shapes, and they executed their projects with a relatively high level of confidence."

"There were gender differences in the language used to describe a project, and not surprisingly, there were minor factors affecting division of labor, but these were more likely based on physical ability than gender bias," says Geraty. "As one would expect, men were usually tasked with the heavy lifting and strength work, while women were more often tapped to do the detail work."

Other than finding out the unexpected truth that men and women were actually working pretty well together on home improvement projects, there was one other little surprise. "Men are deeply involved in the decorating part of the project," says Atkinson. "We consistently found that men were playing a major role in making decisions on color, materials and the feel of a room."