The division of cognitive labor in the household and its implications for health and labor market outcomes

10 July 2024

Cognitive labor is an underexplored yet potentially influential dimension of household labor. It refers to a host of mental household tasks, pertaining to the anticipation of needs, identification of options, decision-making, monitoring and management. These cognitive tasks are often invisible to people who perform them and to other family members, have less clear temporal and spatial boundaries, and are hard or impossible to outsource or automate. This project will investigate how couples divide this type of labor in the Netherlands and how this division is associated with health and labor market outcomes.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash