Gendered Mental Labor in Young Professionals’ Career and Family Plans

• In Event: 3247 - Gender/Sex and Emotional Labor in Work and/or Family

Abstract

Gendered plans for work and family are thought to contribute to gender inequality in career and family outcomes. This study examines career and family plans among young professional men and women, and explores how heterosexual romantic partners make plans for work and family together. Data from in-depth interviews with 21 graduate and professional school couples (N=40) and a survey of professional school students (N=174) indicate that men and women mostly do similar kinds of mental labor to make similar career plans. At the couple-level, some partners share the mental labor of planning two careers together, others direct both partners’ mental labor toward planning one career first, and a final group of partners do mental labor individually to separately plan their respective careers. Women do more mental labor to think about having children than men do, and are less likely than men to agree that they and their partners share mental labor to balance work and family. Among the interviewed couples, some partners share the mental labor of making family plans, others push off family plans for the future, and in some couples the woman does mental labor to make family plans for both partners. Although men and women share preferences for careers, families, and egalitarian relationships, women do more mental labor than men to think about future family responsibilities and how to balance them against career obligations as a couple.

Author

• Jaclyn S. Wong, University of Chicago