Hi friends,

I was saddened to hear about the resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern due to burnout. She was a refreshing alternative to traditional leadership archetypes, proving that you can be strong while maintaining a sense of deep kindness and empathy.

Her resignation highlights two important nuances that we need to discuss when addressing burnout: systemic imbalances and the gender tax.

1) The Systemic Causes of Burnout: Blame the Mine, not the Canary

One of the most toxic aspects of burnout narrative is idea that the solution solely lies in the hands of the individual. That if you just manage your time better, do a little more yoga, and get some more sleep, you won't be at risk of burnout. While individual accountability plays an important part in managing our own wellness, we cannot ignore that systemic structures in place that make it impossible for individuals to fully recharge.

First, let's talk about burnout as an organizational problem. According to a Gallup survey of 7,500 full-time employees, the top five reasons for burnout are:

1. Unfair treatment at work
2. Unmanageable workload
3. Lack of Role Clarity
4. Lack of communications and support from managers
5. Unreasonable time pressure

The root causes are in the culture of the company itself. You can't tell someone to turn their phone off on the weekend when their boss is repeatedly messaging them urgently. It's just not realistic.

Christina Maslach (of the Eponymous Maslach Burnout Inventory) gave this example:

Individual intervention without addressing the broader culture of the organization is a band-aid fix.

The Rise of Precarious Work:

Second, let's talk about the economic reality that many people face. There are millions of people who I'm sure would love to take some time off to properly rest, but cannot do so because of their socio-economic circumstances.

In a 2021 paper, researchers outlined how structural racism, hiring discrimination and access to forms of capital, have collided with economic recessions, automation, reduced collective bargaining rights, and neoliberal economic policies to create a labor market full of Precarious Work.

Precarious work includes temporary work, involuntary part-time work, economic insecurity/low wages, lack of workplaces protections, and physically and psychologically unsafe workplaces.

This results in the following three types of precarity:

1. Precarity OF Work: The work itself is unreliable. This includes temporary work, gig-economy work, and other part-time jobs that don't have guaranteed hours.

2. Precarity AT work: You have work, but the workplace lacks psychological safety, toxic social culture, and high rates of discrimination. I'm sure we can all picture a Horrible Boss who made our working lives hell, right?

3. Precarity FROM work: The job you work does not pay you a livable wage resulting in a state of financial distress despite being "employed."

[Side note: this is what drives me bonkers about reporting on unemployment data. There are people who are technically employed and still living below the poverty line, incapable of making ends meet. Increasingly volatile labor markets mean that unemployment is no longer an accurate reflection of the state of the economy. If you have millions of people working who still can't afford to live, do you have a strong economy?]

You can have more than one of these elements at once.

For example, an UberEats driver can suffer from all three: they start a shift never knowing how many deliveries they'll have, Uber has been tenaciously anti-union and has lobbied to categorize their workers as independent contractors instead of employees, and many drivers don't make enough to earn a livable wage.

2) The Gender Tax

The other big factor is the disproportionate division of labor that many women still shoulder at home, in addition to their professional responsibilities. I'm not surprised Arden said she have "enough in the tank" to keep going or seek re-election. It's a state of mind that many working women know intimately.

In October of last year, McKinsey surveyed 40,000 employees and reported that women in top jobs were quitting at the highest rates in the past five years. The survey found that 43% of women in leadership positions cited burnout, compared to 31% of their male counterparts.

The Pandemic has been devastating for working women. Research shows that from April to August 2020, the percentage of women in the workforce dropped by 13.6%. In addition, more than one million more women than men have dropped out of the workforce, a phenomenon that has been coined the “she-cession”.

This is due in part to the fact that women are more affected by pandemic-related layoffs, due to their overrepresentation in sectors like hospitality, food services, and retail that are more likely to be affected by economic downturns. Furthermore, women with children bear the burden of childcare and are leaving the workforce at higher rates due to school closures.

The BBC was slammed for writing a sexist headline about Ardern's resignation that read "Jacinda Ardern Resigns: can women really have it all?"

Women don't want it all. Eve Rodsky summarized this point in her book, Fair Play. Women don't have it all, they've just gotten stuck DOING it all. And that has to change.

The Wellness Economy

One of the saddest things about Adern's resignation is that New Zealand is losing a leader who was invested in attacking some of these issues in a humane and progressive way.

Her government was the first to put forward the idea of a "Wellness Budget," which is focused on the idea that financial prosperity alone is not a true reflection of country's ability to provide a good quality of life for its citizens.

Instead, New Zealand wanted to measure the health of the population, the quality of education, the strength of social relationships, the intelligence of public debates, the integrity of public institutions, and the impact of environmental policies.

The policies introduced focused on improving mental health, reducing child poverty, thriving in a digital age and transitioning to a low-emission and sustainable economy.

In 2021, Canada followed suit by introducing a "Quality of Life Strategy" and Scotland recently announced it would be integrating more wellness oriented measures into their National Performance Framework.

Burnout is a complex issue encompassing individual beliefs, industry norms, and societal expectations. We can't expect individuals to bear the brunt of a system that seems to be failing more and more people across the board.

I wish PM Ardern a deeply restful recovery. I know she has a great career path ahead and I can't wait to see what she chooses to focus on next.

I'm off to South Africa for a conference, will share my thoughts and research next week, so stay tuned!