Unseen Inequity of Cognitive Labor

We've all heard about the inequities of labor in housework between men and women, but have you ever thought about the invisible labor that goes on in your head?

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I found this very interesting article about the inequities of cognitive labor between men and women. This is the thinking, worrying, and planning that goes on behind the scenes to keep a household running smoothly.

Allison Daminger, who has a PhD in sociology and social policy and is a leading researcher in the field, has been investigating this through interviews with couples. On the importance of this research, she says:

“We focus so much on time; how many hours are you working on chores, cooking, and cleaning, and we haven’t really paid as much attention to the mental experience. And if we think about our mind space—our bandwidth—as an important resource, that seems a really important piece of the equation that we’re overlooking.”

She is also interested in the ways in which individuals fit themselves into the societal stereotypes set for them:

“Sociologists understand how race and gender and class, and all these forces shape us, but at the end of the day, the individual is making a choice and fitting into that broader pattern, and I am just drawn to that level of analysis.”

So, she set up interviews with couples to examine how this cognitive labor was distributed.

She interviewed husbands in heterosexual couples who were project managers and surgeons with strong executive function skills, but when they came home, they deferred to their wives, whom they acknowledged had a superior ability to plan and think ahead. As for the professional women she interviewed, she found that they were Type A at work and Type A at home. “She’s just [Type-A] across the board, whereas with men it’s more context specific,” Daminger said.

While there is still a long way to go in the research and implementation of these findings into society, it’s very interesting to consider these problems and keep them in mind as we attempt to foster more equality in the household and beyond