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Allison Daminger

Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology and Social Policy, Harvard University
Chapter Member: Boston SSN
Areas of Expertise:

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About Allison

Daminger's research focuses on gender inequality in family life. Her current project centers on "cognitive labor": the work of anticipating households needs, identifying and selecting among options for meeting those needs, and monitoring the outcomes. Daminger also writes about the changing nature of gender in the twenty-first century and what it will take to make further progress toward gender equality.

In the News

Allison Daminger quoted on cognitive labor and without an explicit plan, couples just fall into the division of labor and almost always replicate the status quo with women doing more by Jennifer Miller, "Family Life Is Chaotic. Could Office Software Help?" The New York Times, May 27, 2020.
"How Couples Share “Cognitive Labor” and Why It Matters," Allison Daminger, Society, Behavioral Scientist, September 19, 2019.
Allison Daminger quoted on the study of defining and describing cognitive labor by Matt Huston, "Tired of Doing the Invisible Work in Your Family?" Psychology Today, August 24, 2019.

Publications

"De-Gendered Processes, Gendered Outcomes: How Egalitarian Couples Make Sense of Non-Egalitarian Household Practices" American Sociological Review 85, no. 5 (2020).

Shows how couples can acknowledge the traditional gendering of their household practices even as they describe the process of allocating household labor as fundamentally "de-gendered." Describes while this de-gendering helps prevent spousal conflict, it also directs attention away from the inequalities that continue to shape domestic life.

"The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor" American Sociological Review 84, no. 4 (2019): 2019.

Defines cognitive labor (the mental work involved in running a household and raising children) and shows how gender shapes its allocation between different-sex partners.