Allison Daminger is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an internationally recognized expert on gender inequality in family life. As an academic researcher, she specializes in understanding how couples divide the often-invisible mental work involved in running households and raising children, and why this work disproportionately falls on women—even in relationships committed to equality. Her book, What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life (Princeton University Press, September 2025), documents women’s heavy mental workload and highlights alternative ways couples can organize care and responsibility.
Daminger’s research has been published in leading journals including American Sociological Review and Gender & Society, received multiple awards from the American Sociological Association, and been supported by organizations such as Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences and the Mental Research Institute. In addition to her academic work, she regularly shares evidence-based insights with broader audiences through her newsletter, The Daminger Dispatch, op-eds, and media appearances. Her work has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, the BBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Psychology Today.
The Spark Behind Studying the Mental Load
1. What provoked you to study the mental load? Was there a particular moment when you realized this invisible labor needed to be documented, not just discussed?
A few things led to my aha moment. Number one, I used to work in behavioral economics, and one of my big learnings was that decision-making is taxing. When you come home at the end of a long workday, the last thing you want is to decide what’s for dinner, right? Number two, when I started grad school I was taking sociology classes and learning all about how much more time women spend on unpaid labor. But I realized that the clock probably wasn’t capturing any of that taxing decision-making: it often happens in our heads, while we’re doing other things, etc. I suspected that women were doing a lot more of that invisible work than men, but because the tools for measuring it didn’t exist, I had to create them.
Mental Load Through a Tech Lens
2. You've interviewed more than 200 people. What was the most surprising thing you learned about how men vs women perceive the mental load, especially in industries like technology where women are often outnumbered?
I (mostly) interviewed couples for this book: I’d talk to Partner A one day, and then Partner B the next. I found it somewhat surprising that most men recognized the mental work their wife or partner was doing, at least to some extent. But what I found even more surprising was that they often chalked it up to personality: she does all the planning and remembering because she’s “Type-A,” they told me. And I think when we focus on personality, or on the idea that women are just innately better at multitasking or intrinsically enjoy planning ahead, we fail to see the “load” part of the mental load. Just because someone is good at something doesn’t mean it isn’t a burden! To be fair, women also pointed to personality, but they were a bit more likely to also recognize the burden this work imposed on them.
The Hidden Mental Load Women in Tech Carry
3. Women in tech often carry hidden responsibilities. How does that version of the mental load differ from what you’ve seen in other fields?
Of course, there are lots of different ways to be a woman in tech, but I happened to mostly interview women who were on the product management side of things. What struck me in talking with them was how they (and their partner) believed that because they were professional managers, of course they would be the ones to project manage the home. Which makes sense. But when I talked to male product or project managers, the narrative was different: he’s managed all week, the last thing he wants to do is come home and manage things there!
Why Mental Load Resists Automation
4. Despite automation and AI, the mental load hasn’t gone away. Why do you think even the smartest tools can’t seem to lift that weight?
Part of the challenge is that when we get new technology, our standards tend to increase. Oh, you have a washing machine? You should be washing your clothes every time you wear them! Oh, you have a vacuum? Your floors should always be spotless! I suspect that once AI is more widespread, formerly difficult tasks will be seen as easy, and so the expectation will be that you should be doing them more often/better. Another part of the challenge is that the mental load is rooted in deeply knowing your people. In other words, it’s based in human relationships that are difficult to automate. Moreover, many people would rather not even try.
Agentic AI and the Future of Mental Load
5. Agentic AI—systems that can make decisions and act independently—is emerging fast. Do you see potential for this kind of technology to redistribute mental load fairly, or does it risk reinforcing the same biases in new forms?
I should caveat that my thoughts on this topic are evolving, and I’m hoping to study this directly in the future. (If any readers working in FamTech are interested in discussing a research partnership, let me know!) But what I’ll say for now is that I’m most optimistic about how AI might make components of mental labor easier for the people already doing them. A lot of research-type work, for instance, can be effectively outsourced to AI, even if there are other components (see above!) that are harder or less desirable to outsource. But I’m currently less optimistic about the potential for AI to disrupt gender inequality in the home, because those inequalities tend to be rooted in something much deeper than not having the right tool/system – though I’d love to be proven wrong.
The Takeaway That Matters Most
6. After years of research and writing, what idea or quote from your book do you hope readers — especially women in tech — will remember most?
I hear from a lot of women who feel like they’re just not trying hard enough, that if only they did X, Y, or Z, it wouldn’t be so exhausting to raise children and keep a household going. And what I hope my book shows is that the struggle and overload are not just a ‘you’ thing! You’re working within a system that’s set up to push a lot of labor onto individual families, and then within those families, onto women’s shoulders. Knowing that won’t automatically make everything easier – but I do hope that it helps remove a layer of guilt and shame to know you’re not alone, and it’s not necessarily your fault if things feel hard.
If this interview sparked new ways of thinking about mental load, gender equity, and the invisible work shaping our daily lives, Allison Daminger’s book offers a deeper, research-backed exploration of these ideas. Her work invites readers not only to recognize inequality but to imagine more equitable ways of organizing work, care, and responsibility.
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