Women are more likely to be pushed or encouraged to take this important supportive role to benefit others while putting themselves at risk.
In fact I'd say the housekeeping skills are always more marketable, more basic and easier to master - you can live off them, but not without. This gives rise to competition which drives both social perception of value and actual financial value down.
Mutual dependency has been the way of life for ages - for good reason.
Edit: Thought police strikes again! Instead of downvoting, please provide a coherent argument why a given point is invalid or how.
You would be surprised how big a bag "homemaking" is, ranging from cooking, through teaching, down to clerical work, through basic finances and back up with handyman (yes yes) fixes. Any of those skills specialized in is marketable, though not respectable on its own.
Note how few of them are true knowledge and research work. All of them are in the areas where there have been major reductions in number of jobs due to automation and centralization.