Three Methods That Gender Discrimination Amplifies Workplace Exhaustion in Females
For years, women have reported experiencing higher levels of burnout than men, and this gap has only widened since the pandemic. In Deloitte's Women @ Work 2024 report, nearly one in four working women reported feeling job burnout. The World Health Organization defines burnout as a state of physical and mental exhaustion caused by chronic workplace stress, leading to feelings of energy depletion, reduced professional efficacy, and job detachment.
Women's higher rates of burnout can be attributed to a variety of factors. First and foremost, women carry disproportionate caregiving responsibilities outside of the workplace. In 2020, women with full-time jobs performed 22% more unpaid household and childcare labor than men with full-time jobs, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Women not only provide the majority of childcare but also shoulder a significant burden of eldercare.
However, gender biases in the workplace play a significant role in women's burnout as well. Researchers have identified three forms of gender bias that likely contribute to women's higher rates of burnout:
- Overtime Rewards Imbalance: According to a 2024 study published in the Social Psychology Quarterly, women who work the same long hours as men receive smaller workplace rewards. In the study, participants consistently picked the employee working 60 hours per week to receive rewards nearly 89% of the time. Yet, men reaped a significantly larger premium than women for their overwork.
- Undervalued Efficiency: In a lose-lose scenario, highly productive women who complete tasks more efficiently often receive fewer workplace rewards than their male counterparts, even when they achieve identical performance ratings. This bias creates incentives for women to work longer hours to progress in their careers.
- Underestimation of Fatigue: Women's fatigue is often underestimated, while men's fatigue is overestimated, according to a new study. This bias could result in women being assigned to a greater breadth of projects, receiving fewer supportive check-ins, and facing an increased risk of burnout due to insufficient attention to their well-being.
Employers have a responsibility to address these gender biases to help reduce women's burnout rates. They can invest in mental health resources, introduce accurate measures of performance and productivity, support employees' use of vacation time and flexible schedules, and decrease gender bias by offering greater workplace flexibility for all. By acknowledging and addressing these biases, employers can create a more equitable and supportive work environment.
By taking proactive steps to combat gender biases and support women in the workplace, employers can help mitigate the high rate of women's burnout and create a more balanced, productive, and healthier environment for everyone.
- Despite the efforts to combat burnout, the gender gap in fatigue persists, with women's fatigue often being underestimated and resulting in a higher risk of burnout.
- The issue of burnout in women has been correlated with their increased caregiving responsibilities outside of work and gender biases within the workplace.
- Employers can address burnout by providing mental health resources, using accurate performance and productivity measures, and supporting employees' use of vacation time and flexible schedules to promote work-life balance.
- To reduce the high rate of employee burnout, particularly among women, employers need to recognize and address disparities in rewards for long hours worked, undervalued efficiency, and underestimation of fatigue.
- Visas for skilled workers can contribute to addressing the gender disparities by allowing for more gender diversity in the workforce, potentially reducing burnout by minimizing the disproportionate burden on women.
