housewife vs wife

housewife and wife both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
housewife	Yes	No	No	No
wife	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, wife is a hypernym of housewife; that is, wife is a word with a broader meaning than housewife:

housewife: a wife who manages a household while her husband earns the family income
wife: a married woman; a man's partner in marriage

Other hypernyms of housewife include married woman.

housewife (noun)	wife (noun)
a wife who manages a household while her husband earns the family income	a married woman; a man's partner in marriage