Assistant Professor
College of Letters & Science | Department of Sociology
Allison Daminger is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on how and why gender continues to shape individuals’ experiences at home and at work, even as support for gender-egalitarianism keeps growing. Daminger’s first book, What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2025. Daminger is passionate about translating academic research for readers outside the academy, and her work has been featured in venues such as the New York Times, the BBC, and Psychology Today.
Talks:
What's on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life
Decades of research shows that women in different-gender couples perform most housework and childcare, even when both partners are employed. But what counts as housework? In this talk, Dr. Daminger presents the results of a study drawing on the experiences of more than 170 parents. She explains what cognitive labor (aka “the mental load) entails, how gender shapes its allocation between romantic partners, and what we can do to ensure this work is divided more equitably.
Building a Caregiver-Friendly Workplace
In this talk, Dr. Daminger draws on her own and others’ research to describe the unique challenges faced by employees with caregiving responsibilities and explain what employers can do to help them thrive.