Unequal Burdens, Unequal Benefits: Housework, Mental Load, and Gendered Satisfaction in Heterosexual Relationships.

Authors

Verena Klein, Esra Ascigil, Tanja Oschatz, Rotem Kahalon

Published in

Personality & social psychology bulletin. Pages 1461672261474320. Aug 21, 2026. Epub Aug 21, 2026.

Abstract

Despite growing attention to unequal housework distribution, the cognitive and emotional demands-collectively referred to as mental load-remain underexplored in relationship research. Across two studies, we examined how mental load distribution in heterosexual couples relates to women's relationship and sexual satisfaction. In Study 1 (N = 452), women reported greater satisfaction when male partners contributed more to mental load, especially to emotional labor. Mental load was a stronger predictor of satisfaction than physical housework and women's gender ideology, suggesting that even egalitarian women disproportionately shoulder this often-invisible labor. Study 2 (N = 156 couples) used dyadic data and found women's satisfaction increased with shared mental load, while men's satisfaction was higher when their female partners took on a greater share. These gendered patterns were observed for both relationship and sexual outcomes. Our findings underscore the importance of recognizing mental load as a distinct factor in understanding gender inequality in intimate relationships.

PMID:
42630014
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Aug 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.