Introduction: Domestic labour involving tasks that require physical activity such as lifting, bending, cleaning, and childcare, has been reported to be deleterious to women’s health. However, domestic labour, as a type of physical exercise, has been associated with positive health outcomes.

Methods: To investigate the association between women’s domestic labour and self-reported illnesses. A sample of 1869 ever-married women (15–59 years) living in the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon was studied. Women who reported at least one illness were compared, by level of involvement in domestic labour, with those who did not. Two measures were used for domestic labour: (1) a scale ranging from 0 to 7 assessed women’s involvement level in household tasks: cleaning rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms, washing dishes and clothes, preparing food, and ironing. Women were grouped into two categories: low to moderate involvement and high involvement in household tasks; (2) number of children under 15 years (0; 1–2; >3) as an indirect measure of childcare. A multiple logistic regression model was fitted accounting for age, weight, education, household monthly income, participation in labour force, parity, social support, and distress.

Results: Women highly involved in housework were less likely to report an illness (OR = 0.63; (95% CI 0.44 to 0.91)). Also, women with more than two children below 15 years were significantly less likely to report an illness (OR = 0.41; (95% CI 0.26 to 0.63)).

Conclusion: Reporting at least one illness was inversely associated with involvement in domestic labour. This may be an artifact resulting from the natural selection of healthier women in domestic labour, a selection bias similar to the ‘‘healthy worker effect’’ often encountered in occupational studies. The cross sectional design followed in this study provided a useful exploratory tool of the possible ‘‘healthy houseworker effect’’ that should be accounted for in research investigating women’s work, including domestic labour, and health.