Mental load: women are more satisfied when partners share the thinking behind daily life

Whoever keeps track of appointments, shopping or birthdays in a relationship and organises everyday life is doing what is known as mental work – the “mental load”. How that load is shared may matter more for women's satisfaction than how the housework itself is divided. That is the suggestion of a study by psychologist Verena Klein of the University of Southampton together with Esra Ascigil, Tanja Oschatz and Rotem Kahalon, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and reported by PsyPost on 9 October. In a first, preregistered study, the team surveyed 452 UK women living with a male partner (average age about 42, just over half with children). The more mental load their partner took on, the more satisfied the women were with their relationship and their sex life – although the associations were modest. Physical housework and gender-role attitudes no longer predicted satisfaction once mental load was taken into account.

In a second study of 156 heterosexual couples from the UK and US (average age about 38, together for 13 years on average), both partners agreed that women carry more of the mental work – especially for tasks involving the children. Women were most satisfied when the load was shared equally; men, by contrast, reported higher relationship satisfaction when their partner took on more. “Even women who explicitly held egalitarian views could still be carrying a disproportionate share,” Klein told PsyPost.

The study has clear limitations: both parts are snapshots that show associations, not causes. The second study was not preregistered, and the team developed its own 17-item mental load scale, which still needs further validation. Psychologist Geoff MacDonald of the University of Toronto, who was not involved, noted that the scale may also capture how responsive a partner is perceived to be or how conscientious someone is. Only people from the UK and US were surveyed, and paid working hours were not recorded. The PsyPost report gives no information on funding.