Why the digital load matters for all couples
Whether they have children or not...
I recently covered an interesting new study for the BBC on digital overload - exploring how when it comes to using technology at home, women tend to do more of the day-to-day online work for the family, creating an extra digital burden.
This of course has wider implications, so it got me thinking about a recent chat I had with a male single dad, who does all of the above but feels like he’s not considered as a primary parent at the school gate simply because he’s male in a space dominated by women. For many years he felt excluded - a common feeling for many of the stay-at-home dads I’ve been speaking to. This exposes an interesting paradox. We want more men to be involved but don’t welcome them as one of the ‘mums’, because it’s a space women have tended to own so consistently.
To me it shows we need to reframe and normalise that anyone can be the ‘primary caregiver’ and stop expecting it to always be mums - which takes both individual and societal change (workplaces expect women to work more flexibly than men, for instance). On a personal level we can do this by changing who is listed as first contact at school, by both parents organising play dates and responding to party invites and so on. There are so many dads at the school gates these days in my circles that I have come to expect it. These dads also organise playdates, parties and are parent reps.
This still isn’t the norm though - and often women tend to do more because we are expected to do so - we internalise this expectation and therefore take on certain roles without handing them over. Surprise surprise, the person who does more ends up becoming more proficient too, meaning we become project managers of the household.
Here’s a snippet of the take homes of the piece below - very keen to hear all your thoughts on how we can divide more of these tasks, so we don’t end up in a cycle of gatekeeping → resentment → conflict.
Clearly technology can help us be more productive in many areas of our lives. But at home, it is evident that technology is adding to women's already busy mental workloads. A recent cross-national study found that the mental load on women, especially mothers, is exacerbated by technology. There appears to be a gender division of labour when it comes to digital communication regarding work and family life.
Men tended to use technology most at work but women used technology both at work and home. "We find that women are more likely to be exposed to the double burden of digital communication in both work and family life," says lead author of the study Yang Hu from Lancaster University in the UK, who conducted the study alongside Yue Qian from the University of British Columbia in Canada. Women who worked from home also experienced more of this double burden.
It is an issue that has worsened as we conduct more of our lives online, and as working from home has become more common following the Covid-19 pandemic. Women are 1.6 times more likely than men to juggle dual-high digital communication both at work and at home, the researchers found.
Examples of what this means in practice aren't hard to find. My local mum's group is more active than the dad's group, and has many more participants (several hundred). This is where mums chat about events, rashes and parenting concerns. Even if a group is labelled as a parent's group, the most vocal participants, I find, are usually women.
To solve the above it starts with small things. A tiny example of the tech load can be seen in the following real . This week we were asked to buy a new reading book for school (via a Whatsapp group), which I instinctively did. Because it’s the norm for me to do so, these sorts of admin tasks become mine - but the thing is, they add up and until couples have a chat about dividing who does what, the load exacerbates and resentment can build. It’s not an overnight fix, and there’s no point in blaming each other but in slowly starting to share or hand tasks like this over more fairly, by agreeing on who organises what (otherwise you may start competitively buying things and end up with two books etc etc - this happened to one couple I spoke to with the food shop!).
If one in a couple is busier at work, it makes sense for the other to do a bit more of the admin but only to a point, as continuing this division leaves the other one less time for career progression, cementing these cycles. This is why communication about the mental load is so important - on a personal relationship satisfaction level as well as for career progression. Do let me know if you have tips on how to divide tasks like this, what’s worked and what hasn’t? What causes the most resentment and how did you get this way?
For more read the full piece on the BBC here - and if nothing else, admire the stunning artwork.
The Motherhood Complex is available from most book stores. Breadwinners is out in summer 2025
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