[Online] AI, Apps, and the Mental Load

Nobel-Prize winning economist Claudia Goldin argues society will not have gender equality until it has partner equality. That includes how the care work, domestic work, and mental labor of everyday family life are divided.

Today, according to Pew Research Center, the number of families in which men are the sole breadwinners is down drastically from fifty years ago, from over half to just 29 percent. Yet even in “egalitarian marriages,” in which men and women both make significant contributions to family income, women are doing more care work and housework, and men are getting more leisure time. Meanwhile, the work of managing children, caregiving, and a contemporary household has ballooned and grown more complex, requiring more and more of busy, overworked parents.

Over the past few years, dozens of new apps in the fam tech space have launched to ease the burden, but key questions remain unanswered. 

Can these new technologies bring about real and lasting gender equality?

Who can access and use tech solutions and who will be left behind?

And what will it take to change not just how the work gets done, but who does it?

Join the New America’s Better Life Lab and the Fair Play Policy Institute for a panel discussion on the promises and limitations of new gender equality technologies with thought leaders working within the fam tech space.

Moderator:
Haley Swenson, Research Fellow, Better Life Lab

Panelists:
Avni Patel Thompson, Founder, Milo

Courtney Leimkuhler, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Springbank Collective

Stephanie LeBlanc-Godfrey, Founder, Mother AI

Silvia de Denaro Vieira, Co-Founder and CEO, Coexist