Why does this article have the picture of a woman as its feature image?
Why does this one have the same?
The answer is simple, the modern workforce is a draining place for a woman to be day to day, and women can relate more to this idea of work burnout than men. While both men and women can feel the heat in the work force, and both men and women get tired, men were made for working the grind everyday and women were not. It is that simple, therefore, it stands to reason that the modern workforce is not coping like the workforces of the past, because the modern workforce is far more egalitarian than it ever was in the past, has far more women making up its numbers, and this will have an effect on the ability of the work for to cope. The higher percentage of women means there is a higher percentage of those not coping.
Every man knows that he has to work for life. Well almost every man. I have noticed an increasing trend in millennial men to rely on their wives for income and provision, and to float from job to job as a result. In fact, I am becoming shocked at how common this phenomenon is. But in general every man is trained and raised to be a provider, to know that working is his lot and that he needs to earn money to provide at least for himself, or for his family, and that he will be judged on his ability to do this. This is just a given. Men know this expectation is on them, it is just a matter of choosing what job or career they are going to do. But, despite many efforts to teach women the contrary, many, if not most, women know that they can check out of the workforce and society will not judge them as it does men.
A man who does not work is looked down upon as a low status man by almost all men and women. But a woman who maintains the home is not viewed the same way, in fact, in some circles she will be lionized. So, for many, if not most, women, they know that the workforce for them is either a choice, which they can back out of, or an injustice, because they have not yet found the right man to take them out of it. There are exceptions to this of course, the women who really wanted their career, and were raised to pursue it. But even for women such as these they carry the frame and nature of a home-keeper and nurturer. So, the chances of them burning out from the workforce, or dropping out all together once kids come along, or at the very least seeking to work less hours for a more balanced, family style approach to life, is incredibly high. The workforce is by nature a man’s world, and while women can both compete and do quite well in that realm, it forces them to overcome a lot of their inherent nature in the process. This is a tiresome pursuit. And the tiredness is being observed,
“Gen Z and young millennial employees in Britain are missing the equivalent of a day’s work every week due to mental health struggles, new research has shown.
Analysis by Vitality, the health and life insurer with over 30 million members worldwide, found that the average worker in the U.K. feels unable to work for almost 50 days a year—costing the British economy a staggering £138 billion ($176 billion).
For those under 30 years old, the number of productive days lost rises to 60, while Gen X and baby boomers say they are mentally absent for an average of 36.3 workdays a year—marking a stark 64% difference.
The root cause, as per Vitality’s findings, is stark: Younger, less affluent workers are grappling with mental health challenges without adequate employer support.
While physical health struggles led to a 54% productivity dip, mental health issues hit harder, causing a staggering 150% loss in productive days, particularly for the youth.” 1
Notice this, research shows that younger employees, who are far more likely to be women, are taking nearly twice the amount of time off while they are actually supposed to be working. They are producing far less. They key reason offered is mental health issues,
“Depression rates are twice as high among younger workers, accompanied by elevated levels of burnout and fatigue compared to their older counterparts.
Adding to the strain, those earning under £30,000 ($38,000) annually feel 86% more neglected by their workplace than higher-income colleagues.
This likely explains the 2023 statistic of workers taking an average of just six sick days, with the majority of lost hours due to ineffective work.
Essentially, for 54 days a year, Gen Zers clock in but achieve zilch due to mental hurdles and a reluctance to seek help from higher-ups.” 2
This article does not break down the gender disparities in this mass work burnout. But other research does. As another article notes,
• Women are more likely than men to feel burned out at work, 34% vs. 26%
• The burnout gender gap has more than doubled since 2019
• Women in non-leadership positions are especially affected. 3
This was especially pronounced during the crazy days of the Covid scare, as this article also notes. When pressure increases those who feel it the most feel it even more. This mostly means women feel it more.
This phenomenon is well known, and discussed widely. As another article notes,
“Forty-two percent of women report being burned out. And, Lucia, as you mentioned, that is higher than last year and higher than men. So a little under half of your population of women are burned out. And that’s where we stand today.” 4
Of course, it is not just women who are burned out by the workforce, men are to. But all the data that looks at the difference between genders shows that women are far more burnt out in the workforce than men. And this is well known.
This should not surprise us either. Modern men, who even though they may mock feminists and adamantly say they oppose feminism, are often functional feminists. They expect their wives to function equally to themselves, as providers, but then they expect these women to then tend to them and the home after they finish work. In other words, they act like feminists in thinking women can have and do it all. This wears women out,
“Recent data looking specifically at burnout in women is concerning. According to a survey by LinkedIn of almost 5,000 Americans, 74% of women said they were very or somewhat stressed for work-related reasons, compared with just 61% of employed male respondents.
A separate analysis from workplace-culture consultancy a Great Place to Work and health-care start-up Maven found that mothers in paid employment are 23% more likely to experience burnout than fathers in paid employment. An estimated 2.35 million working mothers in the US have suffered from burnout since the start of the pandemic, specifically “due to unequal demands of home and work”, the analysis showed.” 5
Scholars try to argue that it is traditional gender roles which causes this burnout. This BBC article does just that, “Experts generally agree that there’s no single reason women burn out, but they widely acknowledge that the way societal structures and gender norms intersect plays a significant role. Workplace inequalities, for example, are inextricably linked to traditional gender roles.” 6 But my contention is that they have it precisely backwards.
It is not traditional gender roles that causes this problem. It is modern expectations of the denial of inbuilt biologically driven roles that causes this. Human beings are meant to be gender specialists. Mothers are designed to look after and rear the children, and men are supposed to make it possible for this to happen by providing. Childbirth and childrearing takes resources, time, specialization, and it takes the provision of the father creating that space for women to flourish in the raising of their children for this to all work well. But our modern society rejects all of this. What do you expect to happen to women?
How could women not burnout in a culture that expects them to be both nurturers and providers at the same time? How can society not expect women to burnout even if they deny the inherent biology within them pointing them towards bearing and raising children? Just the denial of that takes energy. For women to act like men takes incredible resources, both from within themselves, and from society over all. No wonder women are burning out at a high rate.
The fact that men face burnout in large numbers is to be expected as well, because human beings are frail, fallen creatures. But a man in the past would work the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous job day in and day out without complaint just because he knew he was doing it for his beautiful wife at home, and knew she would be there when he returned from work. Many modern men still do that, but the average modern man does not have that assurance. The modern wife is just as likely, or even more likely, to be attending to her male superiors professional needs at work, as she is to her own husband's relational needs and helper needs at home. That is the irony in all this is it not? Women are still often serving men in the workforce, they are just strangers instead of husbands.
The woman, in other words, is finding herself in an unnatural environment, and the man is finding he no longer has the support he always needed to get through the hard yakka that he is created for. Anyone can bear under incredible pressure and hardship, as long as they know they are doing it for a good cause. But modern society has managed to throw a spanner into God’s beautiful system. And women feel it the most.
The original report above noted that the government needs to drill down and work out why this is happening. It is happening because we are seeking to force humanity into feminism’s image and not God’s image for humanity. And even many men are seeking to do this. If you send your wife to work, fulltime, so you can have a higher standard of living, you are a functional feminist, and you are perpetuating the feminism that is wearing women out.
Remember what Peter said? “7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7). We are called to not ask of our wives what we would ask of ourselves, many modern men are hurting their wives by ignoring what Peter said.
List of References
1. Orianna Rosa Royle, 2024, https://fortune.com/europe/article/what-is-mental-health-doing-to-gen-z-workplace-anxiety-stress-burnout/
2. Ibid.
3. Lydia Saad et. al. 2021, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/358349/gender-gap-worker-burnout-widened-amid-pandemic.aspx#:~:text=Working%20women%20report%20more%20on-the-job%20burnout%20than%20working,or%20%22very%20often%22%20felt%20burned%20out%20at%20work.
4. McKinsey and Company, 2022 https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/the-state-of-burnout-for-women-in-the-workplace
5. Josie Cox, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210928-why-women-are-more-burned-out-than-men
6. Ibid.
