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What is “Hustle Culture” & Why are Young People So Obsessed with it?
The caricature of the emerging workforce is not pretty. We are touted as entitled and shiftless, more stirred by napping pods and a free coffee bar stocked with exotic espressos than the promise of financial stability. We spend the plentiful earnings from our barrage of minimum wage side-jobs on brunch, data overages, and trinkets for our pets. And when the student debt collector comes knocking, we have nowhere to hide in our $2k/month Torontonian shoebox nestled between a 7/11 and the Kensington fish market—perturbed by the realization we may never be homeowners.
Point blank: millennials and Gen Zers have a bad rap. But it’s not one we’ve necessarily earned.
The fact remains that millennials and Gen Zers may be some of the most diligent cohorts of all time, heading both the normalization of the 40+ hour work week and a burgeoning trend of burnout by 40. Amongst ourselves is a running competition of performative workaholism: one-upping hours of sleep forgone, coffee cups downed, and LinkedIn connections made. It’s become a bragging sport, only amplified by the omnipresence of social media, the ability to post and blog every single micro-achievement.
This toil glamour has become even more apparent in light of COVID-19. Every day is an endless slog of hustle porn: social media posts publicizing activities that demonstrate resilience and enterprise in a state of global crisis.
And while all of these feats may serve as a testament to a person’s tenacity, the inverse is not necessarily true. A lack of motivation in times of extreme uncertainty and distress is not an indicator of a person’s potential or ambition. Young people are so enamored with the idea of hard work, emboldened by it even, that we fail to notice when it comes at the cost of our health. We romanticize discomfort. Idolize burnout. Boast about blood, sweat, and tears. No breaks. No days off. No pain, no gain.
And the numbers are here to back it.
According to a study commissioned by the ManpowerGroup, which surveyed 19,000 working millennials across 25 countries worldwide, 73 percent of millennials work more than 40 hours a week, with nearly a quarter reporting 50+ hour work weeks. That’s more than medieval peasants in 16th century England. Never mind the additional hours people today spend outside of work, undertaking side projects and upping their skill sets to stay relevant.
But such dedication to the corporate clock is not without its consequences. Gen Zers and millennials are significantly more likely than our Gen X predecessors to suffer from depression, anxiety, ulcerative colitis, hypertension, and hyperactivity. Data released by the CDC names suicide the second leading cause of death in people ages 10 – 34. That's a 60% increase in suicides within that age group over 20 years, disproportionate to population growth.
More research is still needed to determine the exact magnitude of correlation between declining mental health and workaholism, but this may prove tough to quantify given the convoluted nature of social trends. While some of this decline can be attributed to a generational shift in awareness and acceptability, it is undeniable that shrinking work-life balances have played a role in the reprioritization of wellness.
So given all its costs, why do we still advocate for hustle culture? As a self-proclaimed ergomaniac, I propose a few reasons. First, the obvious:
In an era rife with technological and societal progress, post-secondary education is the norm. The hiring pool is saturated with qualified and over-degreed candidates, all grappling for opportunities to bolster their resumes in any attempt to distinguish themselves from the competition. People are working harder; acquiring new skills, credentials, and courses out of a necessity to stand out in a thickening sea of candidates.
But the nature of work has also changed. Turnover rates are higher. People are viewed as increasingly dispensable and gone is the mentality that employees are loyal long-term investments to be taught, trained, and gained from. We’ve moved to an instant gratification hiring model, where recruiters seek to maximize the immediate value employees provide by being more selective in their hiring process. The sheer volume of qualified candidates has only amplified their ability to be selective, creating an increasingly narrow job market.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual salary for a millennial today—adjusted for inflation—is estimated to be 20% lower than that of a baby boomer at the same age. Research from Deloitte shows the average net worth of an American aged 18-35 has dropped 34% from 1996 – 2019. These statistics don’t even begin to heed the true disparities in purchasing power due to relative price movements exceeding inflation.
The boomer scrutiny that calls millennials and Gen Zers lazy is misplaced, negligent of a spanning generational wealth gap that can be oversimplified to stagnating wages, mounting debt, and rising living costs. Life is more expensive today. Hustle culture is fueled by a panic to compensate for an inherent socioeconomic disadvantage. Work hard enough to outwork the system. Work more for less than generations prior.
In the wake of a global pandemic, young people are facing even more uncharted levels of economic uncertainty. Much is unknown about the severity and duration of coronavirus-related disruptions, but the pressure to “always be on” is swelling as the economic slowdown worsens, threatening the very livelihoods of individuals. Beyond an anxious need to work harder to sustain oneself is an emerging social trend. Less obviously:
The drain of hustle culture is ultimately what makes it the most alluring. The ability to sacrifice unbridled quantities of your greatest asset, time, in the abstract pursuit of success and wealth is not a feat many can muster. There’s a certain prestige and ego associated with doing something most find too difficult or demanding. A badge of honor that maintains you possess the genre of focus, drive, and discipline needed to work relentlessly and consequently—be “successful”. This sense of ego is only reinforced by a cult-like following of people preaching the “grind” lifestyle. And this sense of elitism is only heightened by the worship of famous outlier success stories—everyone from Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk—who endorse this skewed narrative of hard work.
At the heart of hustle culture is the capitalist-created notion that we are only as worthy as we are productive. All too common among millennials and Gen Zers is the feeling of guilt from the toxic idea that rest is synonymous with weakness. As much as 48% of American millennials don’t use their full amount of annual time off with about 25% too nervous to request time off, according to the Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index. When value is derived from our ability to be monetized, even exhaustion is rewarding because it fuels our sense of self-worth. A startling but somewhat mutual attitude among ergomaniacs is: “if you’re not completely exhausted by the end of the day, you didn’t do enough.” Unsurprisingly, this “don’t stop till you drop” mentality is unsustainable.
None of this is to say hard work is an encumbrance. Competition and diligence have and will continue to be the main drivers for innovation and sociotechnical progress. Because of strong work ethic and spirit, we can fly almost anywhere around the world to see our loved ones. Modern electronics exist because people have continually strived for better, challenging and rejecting the status quo.
So where’s the line between working hard and overworking? The problem lies within hustle culture itself, where working hard becomes more performative than functional, coming at the cost of one’s welfare and nurturing a competitive cycle of burnout. Even deeper is the issue of purpose, where toil becomes your sole source of fulfillment and meaning, and you’re only satisfied when you’re straining.
I’d be grossly remiss to say let’s work hard because we can, not because we have to. It’s a privilege to be able to choose work you enjoy, one that is not afforded to many. But let’s stop romanticizing the work martyr complex. Lose our attachment to the notion of productivity defining personal value. Forego the inflated sense of betterment we feel from the relative inability of others to “always be on”.
You don’t need to work until you drop to warrant rest. Your potential is not dormant, wasting away every second you spend far from the spreadsheets. You’re not falling behind because you paused to smell the daisies. Embrace a healthy work-life balance, push yourself within reason, and stop feeding into a corporate culture that’s going to eat you alive.