The 'Mental Load' Heavier Than Washing Dishes: What Is 'Planning Labor,' the Invisible Care Work?

1. This Work Has No Name: What Is 'Planning Labor'?
Kidznote apps, preparing supplies for pajama parties, booking rehabilitation hospitals for parents and checking medicine stock, managing caregiver schedules. The 'invisible mental processes of planning, predicting, and deciding' that accompany housework and caregiving are referred to as 'planning labor.'

Author Kim Hee-kyung, a former vice minister of gender equality and family and author of 《This Work Has No Name》 (published in July 2026), points out, "Housework and caregiving have traditionally been viewed merely as physical actions, but there is a strategic planning process preceding cooking, such as planning meals and grocery shopping." Comparing this to a corporation, it is equivalent to evaluating only factory operations (execution) while completely ignoring the CEO's leadership or the work of the strategic planning office (planning).

According to a 2024 survey by Gallup Korea, in dual-income households, women perform 2.9 times more execution labor for housework and caregiving than men, whereas they shoulder 3.4 times more planning labor. The gender gap widens further in planning than in execution.

2. "You're Good at It, So You Do It?"... Stereotypes and 'Weaponized Incompetence'

The author explains that one reason men mistakenly believe they do a lot of housework is that they only think about the 'action' itself. Taking washing dishes as an example, they only remember the simple execution of 'cleaning plates,' while excluding management tasks such as checking if detergent is running low, deciding when to replace the sponge, or boiling the dishcloth.

Moreover, there is a stark difference in fatigue levels between 'occasional planning,' such as buying a large home appliance or changing a car, and 'routine planning labor,' which involves planning daily meals and looking after children. This is because routine planning labor imposes a much higher mental burden and fatigue on individuals.

Some might argue, "Can't the person who is good at it just handle the planning while the other person takes care of something else?" However, this is akin to shifting responsibilities at work by telling a collaborating colleague, "You're good at it, so do it all." Author Kim Hee-kyung explains this through the concept of 'weaponized incompetence,' addressed in psychology and sociology. It is an attitude of evading the responsibility of household and care planning itself under the pretext of being clumsy.

3. Caring for Parents and Children with Disabilities... Who Designs This Path Without Signposts?

As the burden of planning labor extends to caring for elderly parents and children with disabilities, it develops into a critical survival issue.

Much like a child's confession that "not knowing the golden time for cerebral hemorrhage rehabilitation meant we started therapy two weeks late," when a parent falls ill, signpost-free care planning begins. According to 2025 statistics from the National Health Insurance Service, the depression rate among family caregivers is 47.6%, which is more than four times that of the general adult population, and 82.4% of primary caregivers for elderly dementia patients are women (including daughters at 42.4%). Public support systems, such as Japan's 'care manager' system, are urgently needed to break the structure where care planning falls onto the most vulnerable individuals within a family.

The moment a child is diagnosed with developmental disabilities, parents (especially mothers) face the harsh imposition that 'it is entirely up to the mother.' According to a 2020 survey by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 20.5% of parents of children with developmental disabilities quit their jobs during COVID-19, and mothers accounted for 78.8% of them. The anxiety of having to independently search and decide on education and rehabilitation methods without information or guides becomes the biggest source of stress for mothers.

4. The Flip Side of Career Breaks and Low Birth Rates... Solutions That Can Be Implemented Right Away

According to statistics from the National Data Agency, childcare (44.3%), marriage (24.2%), and pregnancy and childbirth (22.1%) account for over 90% of the reasons behind career-interrupted women. Furthermore, a survey by the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy cited 'the burden of changes in daily roles due to pregnancy and childbirth' as the primary reason women avoid marriage.

What solutions can be implemented immediately to ease this invisible burden?

Introducing 'weekly meetings' within the household could be a method. Much like a company, holding a weekly household meeting to share school notices, this week's grocery shopping, and household chores schedules allows family members to divide planning and execution.

Accurate definition and listing of housework. This involves mutually agreeing on concepts such as defining 'washing dishes' to include 'organizing the dryer, wiping off moisture, and washing dishcloths,' and listing tasks that each person finds burdensome or dislikes to distribute them.

Recognizing 'planning labor' itself is also a method. Realizing that the fatigue one feels is not 'nonsense labor' but actually 'planning labor' accompanied by severe energy depletion serves as the first step in reducing mental strain.


Deep Dive Q&A
Q1. What is the biggest difference between 'planning labor' and general 'housework (execution)'?

A1. While execution labor consists of visible physical actions such as running the vacuum cleaner, washing dishes, and cooking, planning labor refers to the entire mental process of anticipating, planning, and deciding to ensure that housekeeping and caregiving run smoothly, such as planning meals before cooking, making grocery lists, finding out about kindergarten orientation sessions, and checking children's shoe sizes.

Q2. What is 'weaponized incompetence' and why is it a problem?

A2. It refers to an attitude of evading responsibility and planning by using one's clumsiness as an excuse, saying things like "I'm not good at housework and childcare" or "You're good at it, so just do it." This shatters equal cooperative relationships within the family and heaps daily fatigue and mental burdens onto a single person, making it a major cause of domestic conflict.

Q3. What are some practical ways to reduce the gender gap in household planning labor?

A3. It is effective to hold a 'weekly household meeting' once a week to share notices and schedules to look after for the week, jointly define the start and end of each household chore item (e.g., doing dishes, laundry), and specifically divide the planning and execution stages to assign persons in charge.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.