The Visible Costs of Invisible Household Labor

New research suggests that unmeasured forms of domestic labor may play a significant role in the gender wage gap. Economists Laura Gee, Olga Stoddard and Kristy Buzard will quantify invisible household labor, defined as the cognitive, emotional, and managerial tasks that are essential to household functioning, and investigate its causes, consequences, and inequalities. Their preliminary findings based on a pilot survey suggest that these responsibilities disproportionately fall on women, particularly mothers. The investigators will scale and refine their measurement of invisible household labor by incorporating time use—the duration of cognitive and anticipatory household tasks, not just their frequency or perceived burden. They will collect data) across key life stages, geographic and demographic groups—including parents, childless adults, and both college and high school students—to capture when and how gender gaps in invisible labor first emerge. Second, they will develop theoretical and empirical frameworks that connect invisible household labor to visible household tasks, testing whether conventional metrics capture the full scope of domestic inequality. Third, the PIs will examine mechanisms driving the gender gap in invisible labor by combining survey and field-experimental data on men’s and women’s experiences and perceptions. Preliminary survey evidence suggests that women, compared to men, are significantly more likely to report that engaging in invisible household labor lowers their life satisfaction and fulfillment, in addition to increasing their stress levels.