The Mental Load Dimension of Unpaid Household Labor

The unequal share of house and care work among heterosexual couples has long been a question of feminist theoretical and empirical studies. These studies have primarily focused on the physical dimension rather than the mental dimension of unpaid labor to understand gender inequalities in the household. To our knowledge, there is yet to be a study on mental load in Turkey. To address this gap, we went beyond examining who performs the act and understand how the mental load dimension of various household chores is shared among the couples. In a survey conducted on employees at a private university in Ankara, dyadic information was collected for both their own and their partners on the thinking and planning/ organizing dimensions of various domestic chores. The quantitative analysis revealed that mental load is more frequently and heavily borne by women. Therefore, we recommend academic studies and social policies studying gender inequalities in the share of household labor to focus on its mental load dimension as well.