Anecdata on who carries the life admin load

[JamieCannister]

I run a business. I sell my services to the public. My services relate to what might be called significant financial issues (getting things right or wrong could make thousands of pounds of diffference to my clients).

My clients include individuals, couples, companies and larger groups of individuals.

I have just, out of pure curiousity, gone back through my clients over the last 9 months or so. I have ignored all single people, same sex couples, companies and groups, leaving me with 19 heterosexual couples as clients over 9 months.

Of those couples the woman was the "lead client" (the person who made initial contact and dealt with most correspndance) 12 times and the man 7 times. 63% the woman appears to be carrying the mental load / admin, 37% the man. Almost 2:1.

Interestingly one of the couples the female half of the heterosexual couple identified as non-binary... again it was her who made initial contact and dealt with most correspondance (almost like she had identified out of womanhood, but not the admin that goes with it).

It does make me wonder what the stats would look like if my work was more trivial... I suspect that the nature of my work means that some men who tend to leave the admin to their wife / partner do actually step up because (consciously or unconsciously) they believe that life admin becomes their job once the money is large and it's actually important. I suspect it might be more like 3:1 or 4:1 if the issues were over £50 or £100 and not thousands.

Not much point to this post really, I was just curious to actually do some counting as I suspected that the numbers would show that it is more often the woman in a couple I speak to most. It certainly seems to be. Anyone else observed anything similar?

Interesting for sure. I'm guessing there's been a real shift in the last 30-40 years and this would have been primarily a 'male' task for those who are now 70+?

Honestly it's astonishing to me the number of things that fall into the 'not important' category for my partner and hence are a complete opt out. I wonder if that just becomes the default for in some hetero relationships that men just let all admin fall into that category?

Or perhaps now that women are used to making most of the household decisions day in day out that they find it difficult to let go of the bigger tasks?

I wonder if it's a pendulum swing effect because in the past the man did most of the financial work?
Certainly thinking of my grandparents era, the women were kept out of most financial decision making.
My grandmother was clueless after grandfather died as he had done everything.
I don't see that so much with my generation (and your research shows the opposite).
Having said that, DH has just renewed our house insurance and energy contracts because I hate doing that stuff.

My elderly mother has always dealt with anything financial, not my dad. For her I think that was just part of being a housewife. I don't know how different it was in earlier generations.

I’ve certainly noticed in my own family that the women mostly take the lion’s share of the mental load.

I’ve also noticed a lack of ‘action’ with men and their health (or the women leading on that too). One male relative with very obvious signs of a stroke refusing to have an ambulance called, saying ‘Oh, I’ll get an appointment with the doctor in the week’!!

This was on the internet, so it must be true.
------
Barack Obama once spent an entire Saturday following Michelle around their Chicago house with a notebook, writing down every single task she completed—laundry sorting, grocery list making, permission slip signing, bill paying, appointment scheduling, toy organizing, meal planning—because she'd exploded at him the night before screaming, “you had no idea how much invisible labor I performed daily” while he focused solely on work and politics.

By afternoon, his hand was cramping, and he'd only captured a fraction of what she managed while also working full-time. His face transformed from defensive skepticism to genuine horror as he realized, “our household only worked because Michelle was doing the work of two full people.”
That evening, Barack read the notebook back to Michelle: “I've been a terrible partner—you've been running our entire life while I've been playing at politics, and I'm ashamed that I needed a notebook to see what you've been telling me for years.”

From that Saturday on, he became a true co-parent, managing school communications, groceries, and schedules, ensuring Michelle no longer carried the household burden alone.

Sounds made up to me.
You really think Michelle did any of that stuff?

Sounds like Michelle does the 'admin' and somebody else did the actual work. Who does the Obama family's ironing? Did Michelle do the cooking as well as the 'meal planning'? Does meal planning mean telling the cook what you want to eat?

My impression is that:

• it is more common for women to manage more of the non-financial admin in a family
• but it remains more common for men to be more involved with financial matters and decisions

I can only talk about impressions, but I did lurk a bit around personal finance forums and subreddits, and it always seemed to me there were more men than women. In fact, I remember a few discussions of men complaining their wives were completely uninterested in the topics.

I don't know how common it is, but my wife has some kind of mental block and refusal for anything related to finance and admin. I don't mind handling that myself, but my concerns are for our kids:

• it is not a good example for our children for them to see that mum knows nothing about taxes and finance and leaves everything to dad. There is sharing the workload as a team, and there is remaining wilfully ignorant on anything to do with taxes and finance.
• if I get hit by a bus, the life insurance (private + work) would be significant. My wife would have no clue whatsoever how to save or invest the money.
• I don't expect her to become a finance bro, but I think she should at least know what an ISA is, how pensions work, what the maximum ISA allowance is, how savings are taxed, the difference between an ETF a bond and a banana, etc. I would certainly want to teach my kids these basics when they are old enough. I don't want my kids to think they are things "for men", and that it's normal for women to say: "I know nothing, I want to know nothing, I just want to delegate everything to my man"