Event

Leah Ruppanner:The mental load

This event hosted by UK think tank the Institute for Policy Research explores the unequal distribution of the ‘mental load’ and the policies that could help rebalance it.

Sociologist Leah Ruppanner examines the persistent imbalance of the ‘mental load’, the often invisible cognitive and emotional labour required to keep households functioning and thriving. She explains that although women who earn and work more tend to do fewer physical domestic tasks, these gains rarely reduce the responsibility for planning, organising and anticipating family needs. This hidden burden affects wellbeing, limits economic opportunity and reinforces structural inequalities.

Drawing on findings from her research and her new book, Drained, Ruppanner discusses how the mental load operates as a barrier to equality and why it remains resistant to change. She explores the broader policy landscape, including measures that support shared caregiving, such as well-paid parental leave for fathers, flexible work arrangements and public awareness efforts that challenge traditional norms. She highlights how policy design can redistribute responsibility and promote more equitable family and work environments.

Speaker biography: Leah Ruppanner is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Melbourne and one of the founding directors of The Future of Work Lab. She is the author of Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More and Motherlands: How States Push Mothers Out of Employment. She completed a PhD in Sociology and has spent decades researching gender, work and family, publishing in Demography, the Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociological Methods and Research, the European Sociological Review and Social Science Research.