Mothers do 71% of household planning and scheduling (Bath, 2024)

The finding

Joanna Syrda’s 2024 research at the University of Bath, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne and published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, looked at the cognitive side of household labour: the work of scheduling appointments, planning meals and activities, organising the calendar, and managing household finances. The summary headline was that mothers in the study took on 71% of these tasks, compared with fathers’ 45%.

The number lands because it is a single figure for something that often hides inside the day. Cleaning and cooking are visible. Realising a school form is due, remembering the dentist needs booking, working out what to feed the family on Wednesday before the supermarket shop, these are harder to count. Syrda’s work made them countable, and once counted the split was lopsided.

The study also pointed to a downstream effect: the partner doing the planning often carries an ongoing low-level alertness, the sense that something might be falling through, even at moments that look like rest.

What this looks like in real households

A school newsletter arrives at 7am mentioning World Book Day on Thursday. The parent reading it makes breakfast while skimming it. By 9am, the costume has slipped out of working memory. Thursday morning the child realises, and the rest of the day starts in a panic. The work of catching that line in the newsletter and converting it into a Wednesday-evening task was cognitive labour. It was the kind of thing the 71% is made of.

How a shared system changes the picture

Hermo reads household email as it arrives and turns the things that matter into shared calendar entries and shared todos. The school newsletter does not sit in one person’s inbox; the event lands on the family calendar and the task lands on the shared list, where either parent can pick it up. Hermo does not decide who handles the costume; both partners can see that it needs handling. The planning step stops sitting silently with one person.

Citation

Authors

Syrda, J. (University of Bath, with University of Melbourne collaboration)

Year

2024

Journal

Journal of Marriage and Family (December 2024 release)

Sample

Survey of US couples in households with children (full methodology in source)

Syrda, J. (2024). Research on gender divisions in daily and episodic cognitive household work, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne. Published in Journal of Marriage and Family. University of Bath summary: https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/mothers-bear-the-brunt-of-the-mental-load-managing-7-in-10-household-tasks/.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of household mental load do mothers do?

A 2024 University of Bath study by Joanna Syrda, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne and published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that mothers carry 71% of the household planning, scheduling, and organising tasks that make up the cognitive side of running a home, compared with fathers’ 45%.

What kind of tasks does this study count?

The Bath research counted scheduling, planning, organising, meals, activities, and household finances. These are the tasks that often sit behind the visible chores and are harder to point at, even when they take up real time and attention.

Why does the cognitive split matter more than the physical chores split?

Cognitive work is harder to share because it often happens silently. By the time something becomes a task that can be assigned, the noticing, planning, and option-weighing have already happened. Counting only physical chores misses that earlier layer.

Can technology reduce the planning load?

Tools that extract events and tasks from incoming information, rather than waiting for someone to type them in, move part of the planning step out of one person’s head. Shared calendars and lists help, but only if the upstream extraction is done by something other than a person.

How does Hermo address the 71% finding?

Hermo reads household email and surfaces dates and todos automatically. The planning and organising step is no longer dependent on one person catching the right line in a newsletter at the right moment. Both partners see the same view in WhatsApp.