The mental load is heavy and often unnoticed. Research has shown that cognitive tasks are gendered and due to the burdensome and largely invisible nature of these tasks, an unequal distribution is frequently a source of conflict in couples. Here we propose a research-backed 3 step plan to assess and balance your couple’s mental load.

What is “mental load”?

Mental load is “keeping track of things”, project managing, or overseeing family and household needs. It is the managerial tasks of anticipating, planning, scheduling, and deciding that often runs parallel to physical tasks. Think – planning birthday parties, purchasing children’s clothing before season changes, not running out of toilet paper, diapers or pasta, changing the oil in the car. 

In terms of absolute time, one US study reported that men spend an average of 2.3 hours/week compared to women’s 3.1 hours/week for mental load tasks. But, if we look more closely into the types of tasks we can see some insightful differences according to gender. 

Analyzing the invisible labor

The easiest way to look at tasks is by domain – children, food, activities, logistics, cleaning, household etc. Some domains tend to be gendered – logistics, children, cleaning, and shopping being female-led, and finances being male-led. But this is not always the case, and there are some domains that are more shared including food, travel, and household.

Another way to categorize tasks is by type -anticipation, identification, decision-making, and monitoring. Here’s an example: your 3yr old is waking up early (anticipation), you talk with other parents, search online and learn about the “okay-to-wake” clocks, so you compare prices and features (identification), decide which one to buy (decision-making), you set it up and track the results (monitoring). 

Cognitive labor is often gendered

Looking at the types of tasks, we can also see gender trends. Women tend to do more management tasks – including anticipation of tasks and outcomes. For example: coordinating and supervising hired help, deciding what constitutes an acceptable dinner, and anticipating children’s tangible and intangible needs. Anticipation and monitoring are abstract and invisible. They are often the least bound in time – they do not have a real beginning or end; and they are distant from power – you don’t get the sense of accomplishment when they are completed.

Identification and decision-making are more concrete, more bound by time and more influential. Men participate more equally in identification and decision-making tasks. The gender split in identification tasks tends to follow domain strengths, where as decision-making is most commonly a shared task.

Distribution of Cognitive Leadership according to research by Daminger A. 2019.

• Anticipation is 84% female-led, 6% male-led and 10% shared.

• Identification is 34% female-led, 22% male-led and 44% shared.

• Decision-making is 9% female-led, 3% male-led and 88% shared.

• Monitoring is 68% female-led, 13% male-led and 19% shared.

3 step plan to share the mental load 

What is going on in your relationship? Want to assess the cognitive tasks in your household and see who is doing what? Here’s how.

1. Identify

First, you need to make visible the invisible. Decide on a random 24-hour period, and write down all mental tasks that you perform during that time. Ask your partner to do the same. Then come together with your partner and look at your lists. It is not about the absolute number of tasks, but rather about which type of tasks they are and how they affect you. Assessing the mental load requires digging deeper into what impact certain tasks have on your daily functioning and wellbeing. 

2. Categorize 

Look at the tasks both by domain – food, clothing, children, household, etc. – whatever categories make sense for you, and by type – anticipation, identification, decision-making, and monitoring. Do you see any trends? Is one of you dominant in a certain domain or in a certain type of task? 

3. Make a plan

Research in same-gender couples shows that task division was based on strengths, skill and personal preferences. Try to see if that is evident in your division of mental load tasks. If you enjoy planning vacations, are good at finding the best raincoat, or are skilled in finance then maybe it’s okay if you dominate that category. The goal of this activity is two-fold: 1. To make visible the invisible mental load tasks and 2. to determine if the division of labor is fair for your couple.

Equity, not equality

Keep in mind that things do not need to be 50-50 to be fair. One partner may spend more time doing cognitive labor and less time in paid employment – there are only so many hours in the day! Or, you may find that the division according to strengths, skills and preferences is respected even though one partner ends up with more of the mental load. 

The goal is for couples to feel that the solution is fair. Satisfaction in the division of labor, increases an individual’s wellbeing and relationship satisfaction and decreases conflict. So, take the time to identify, discuss and divide!