An increasing body of research indicates that women perform far more OF THE HIDDEN labour than men when it comes to household responsibilities. RESEARCH SHOWS Even in couples who think that they have achieved an equal division of labour THE MORE Hidden forms of care generally STILL end up falling to the woman.
A broader understanding of behind-the-scenes labour could help us redistribute the work
more EQUALLY.
Cognitive labour: Thinking about all practical elements of household responsibilities. Organizing social calendar, shopping & planning activities.
Emotional labour: Maintaining the family’s emotions & needs. Calming things down if the kids are acting up or worrying about how they are managing at school.
Mental Load: At the intersection of cognitive labour & emotional labour, includes PREPARING, ORGANIZING & ANTICIPATING everything. Emotional & practical actions
that need to get done to make life flow.
Research shows that women in heterosexual relationships still do the bulk of housework & childcare. This is true even for households that think they have equal distribution of household and childcare load. Much of a household's emotional labour, such as calming distressed children, is part of the load that generally falls on mothers.
Research also shows that there are no biological reasons for this load of running a household & childcare to fall on women.
SO WHAT CAN WE DO?
To foster new habits to help share the load we have to make the invisible more visible
An awareness of it is a good first step & constantly being clear about who is managing which task including the planning and prepping of the tasks itself.
Sources:
Thébaud, Sarah & Kornrich, Sabino & Ruppanner, Leah. (2019). Good Housekeeping, Great Expectations: Gender and Housework Norms. Sociological Methods & Research. 50. 004912411985239. 10.1177/0049124119852395.
Daminger, Allison. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review. 84. 000312241985900. 10.1177/0003122419859007.
Reed, Megan. (2022). Marriage And Family In India.
Haupt, Andreas & Gelbgiser, Dafna. (2022). The unequal division of cognitive labor and the mental load. 10.31235/osf.io/tsfu6.
OECD and UN Women data on unpaid carework
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