Delighted to share a new publication out today in the Journal of Marriage and Family w/ the brilliant @leahruppanner.bsky.social. In "A typology of US parents’ mental loads: Core and episodic cognitive labor" we assess underlying patterns in the domestic "mental load" among 3,000 US parents. 🧵 1/10 - ThreadSky

anacweeks.bsky.social • 81 days ago

Delighted to share a new publication out today in the Journal of Marriage and Family w/ the brilliant @leahruppanner.bsky.social. In "A typology of US parents’ mental loads: Core and episodic cognitive labor" we assess underlying patterns in the domestic "mental load" among 3,000 US parents. 🧵 1/10

Comments

rahsaanmax.bsky.social•81 days ago

Nice. Do you find any differences across political partisanship? There’s been lots of chatter about how Dem men are not gender egalitarian in the home?

Also, I would expect more egalitarianism among younger cohorts, but maybe not enough?

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

Thanks! We are writing this paper about determinants among mothers and fathers now. Age does not matter among fathers, but partisanship actually does. We have voted for Trump vs Biden in 2020. Among fathers, voting for Biden is linked to carrying more mental load. Doesn't matter for mothers.

rahsaanmax.bsky.social•81 days ago

I guess you don’t have the overtime data so may not be able to answer. BUT does that imply the older Biden fathers are more egalitarian than we would expect, based on their age? Or, the younger Biden fathers are less egalitarian than we would expect, based on voting?

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

This made me curious to look at the interaction... it's not significant. There's no difference between older Dem vs younger Dem dads within our sample. Over-time data could tell a different story, though.

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

We ask, is the mental load another way parents “do gender” at home? Is it characterized by gender differences whereby mothers do the core, intensive tasks and fathers the episodic tasks (as w/ physical household labor)? Or, could it be that mothers do it all, given admin work is coded female? 2/10

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

We draw on a novel survey battery of 21 distinct measures of domestic cognitive labor from a sample of US parents (n = 3000) selected to be representative of the US population of parents wrt age, race/ethnicity, gender, and education. 3/10

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

Using factor analysis, we show that responses to the mental load items form two distinct dimesions, separating into core (cleaning, scheduling, child care, social relationships, food) and episodic (home maintenance, finances) labor. This is true even looking at mothers and fathers separately. 4/10

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

That is, mothers and fathers differentiate between the daily and episodic cognitive labor tasks, doing-gender by taking on different types of domestic mental work. Overall, mothers say they are mostly responsible for 71% of the domestic mental load items, 60 percent more than fathers (45%). 5/10

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

And there are important differences in the types of mental load that mothers and fathers do. Mothers say they take on 79% of daily tasks (fathers 37%), while fathers claim responsibility for 65% of episodic tasks (mothers 53%). This means that some work is likely duplicated. 6/10

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

Both mothers and fathers tend to overestimate their work when we compare responses to a question asking them to estimate the total share of mental load in their household they personally do -- fathers more than mothers. And fathers are more likely to view the work as shared. 7/10

leahruppanner.bsky.social•81 days ago

Love love love working with you!!! ♥️♥️

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

right back at you !! 🦄🌈

brenchurchill.bsky.social•81 days ago

oh how fab @leahruppanner.bsky.social has been talking about this great new paper! congrats!

anacweeks.bsky.social•81 days ago

Thanks Brendan — I am a fan of your work with Leah on this too!

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