# The invisible labor economy

> A tech worker who tracked 23 hours of weekly household work founded a company to turn that mental load into a paid profession.
- Title: The invisible labor economy · Fortune | Shortify
- Summary: A tech worker who tracked 23 hours of weekly household work founded a company to turn that mental load into a paid profession.
- Keywords: kelly hubbell, sage haus, house managers, household labor, mental load, dual-income families, unpaid work, women's work, Fortune
- Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/11/10/house-managers-sage-haus-mental-load-dual-income-families
- Author: Audrey Abrahams
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: kelly hubbell, sage haus, house managers, household labor, mental load, dual-income families, unpaid work, women's work
## 23 hours a week of invisible work
Kelly Hubbell, a tech sales worker raising two children, tracked everything she did to keep her house running. The total came to 23 hours a week, mostly mental planning rather than chores themselves.

> I just thought, wouldn't it be awesome if I could clone myself?
## She hired a house manager
Hubbell found someone to take over the logistics and errands she had been cramming into evenings and weekends. The relief from handing off tasks inspired her to build a business around it.

> It completely changed my life. Overnight, I felt like I could be a present parent.
## Sage Haus launches in 2023
During her third maternity leave, Hubbell founded Sage Haus, a white-glove service helping parents hire house managers and set up home-management systems.The timing coincided with women holding more U.S.
## What a house manager actually does
A house manager takes ownership of household tasks, making decisions without asking. A babysitter buying shoes for an outgrown child would overstep; for a house manager, that is the job.
## The cost of outsourcing household work
Sage Haus families typically pay house managers twenty-five to forty-five dollars an hour for fifteen to twenty hours a week, roughly twenty thousand to forty-seven thousand dollars a year.
## Mothers do most of the mental load
A 2024 study by researchers at the University of Bath and the University of Melbourne found mothers handle 71 percent of household mental-load tasks, the cognitive work of planning meals and arranging activities.
## Normalizing paid household work
Hubbell quit her job in 2024 to run Sage Haus full time.The company now has more than 60 employees and works with about 100 families a month across the U.S.

> We are putting a value on what has historically been invisible labor on the backs of mostly women.
## Unpaid household work worth trillions
In 2020, Oxfam estimated unpaid care work by women and girls worldwide is worth at least 10.8 trillion dollars a year.In the U.S.
## Key takeaway

Kelly Hubbell founded Sage Haus in 2023 to help dual-income families hire house managers for the planning and logistics work that mothers typically do unpaid.