:: COMPARE ::
The short answer
Both describe invisible effort, but they were coined for different arenas. Emotional labor is paid work under an employer's display rules; the mental load is the unpaid domestic work of remembering, planning and organising a household. The words get used interchangeably online, which blurs a useful distinction.
Side by side
| Aspect | Emotional labor | The mental load |
|---|---|---|
| Where | At work | At home |
| Paid? | Yes | No |
| Rules set by | An employer | Nobody, explicitly |
| Named by | Hochschild, 1983 | Later usage |
What each one means
Emotional labor is the work of managing your own feelings, and the face you show, to produce the emotional display someone else expects — regardless of what you actually feel. Hochschild coined it for paid work and calls the private equivalent 'emotion work'; everyday usage has since stretched it to cover unpaid emotional labour at home, a broadening she has publicly objected to.
Full definition of Emotional Labor →The contrast above sets out how The mental load differs from Emotional Labor on the points that actually matter.