The State of the Mental Load
A live aggregate of cognitive household labor in modern families.
Built from real responses to the Household Mental Load Index. No PII, no individual identifiers — just the aggregate distribution of who carries what. Updated every 10 minutes as new completions come in.
Top line
Total completions
2
Average score
57/100
Median score
57/100
75th percentile
66/100
Catalano Weeks (2025) reported a 71% female-mental-load benchmark in a survey of 3,000 U.S. parents. Our live HMLI aggregate is currently 57 — 14 points below the published benchmark.
Band distribution
Where households sit on the load curve.
Distributed
Score 0-44
1
50% of completers
Shared
Score 45-64
0
0% of completers
Elevated
Score 65-79
1
50% of completers
Overload
Score 80-89
0
0% of completers
Crisis
Score 90+
0
0% of completers
Bands derived from the HMLI scoring engine. 0% of completing households score in the overload-or-crisis range.
Domain heatmap (population-aggregate)
Where the load lives.
Average load across the seven Catalano-Weeks domains. Higher = more concentrated on one person.
Finances
34
Kids — logistics and emotional
67
Social relationships
34
Cleaning & household ops
92
Food
75
The calendar mental model
50
Home maintenance
50
By household type
The load is not the same in every house.
| Household type | N | Avg score | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| dual-parent households with 2+ kids | 2 | 57 | 57 |
For press, researchers, partners
Cite us. Compare us. Replicate us.
The HMLI uses validated peer-reviewed instruments (Wayne et al. 2023 IFLS-9 and Catalano Weeks 2025) so this aggregate is comparable against published academic data. We will publish an annual report — The State of Household Intelligence — once we cross 10,000 completions.
Press inquiries: press@gethomeis.com. Researchers: research@gethomeis.com.
We have never sold this data and will not. Aggregated cohort statistics only; no PII; one-click delete-my-data on request.