What was acceptable to my father—a blue-collar worker at an apparel-manufacturing firm—was insufferable to me. He spent long winter nights away from home, striving to meet production targets so Europeans could enjoy summer dresses made in India. Growing up, I resented the lifestyle. Yet the long hours he put in set our family on an upwardly mobile economic trajectory.
When it was time for me to choose a career, I decided on journalism. It was white-collar work. It also came with regular weekly offs and 21 days of paid annual leave. For me this was progress. I was content.
The young people entering the workforce today aren’t. They want to work from the comfort of their homes, they detest directives and seek to pursue what to many of us is a utopian construct: work-life balance.
This generational change reflects how people’s perception of work and its role in life is evolving. That evolution has been constant. Less than 200 years ago, in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution, Britain had to pass laws to disallow children from working over 12 hours a day in factories. It has only been 100 years since the eight-hour workday was institutionalised.
While my father’s generation was clear that it was willing to work as much as their employers asked them to for the hallowed goal of providing for the family, Gen Z is re-envisioning its purpose both in life and at the workplace. Having joined the workforce after a once-in-a-century pandemic, most members of Gen Z believe in YOLO (You Only Live Once), and hence, refuse to sacrifice life for company balance sheets.
Gen Z wants to call in sick when they are sick, it wants to take vacations to explore the world and find meaning in work. In my 16-year-long career, I have taken leave for over a week only once—the week I got married. The other leaves, I saved, like most people of my generation, in the hope of cashing out upon resignation.
Gen Z’s perception of work is shaped by a culture globalised by social media based out of the Global North. This is not to say Gen Z is not working hard. But the problem is that young Indians, citizens of the world, are aspiring for lifestyles available to people in Europe and the US without duly accounting for their own economic realities.
In India’s IT sector, young professionals are doing jobs that their Western contemporaries don’t want. Gig workers of the same generation are working 12–15-hour days and earning less than what developed economies pay their unemployed. In 2023, per capita income in India was just about $2,240. In the US, it was over $68,000.
The only ones who have it easy are those with generational wealth. If your father is an established lawyer or a partner in a consulting firm, chances are you will not be working late nights like your less-privileged colleagues.
In this issue of Outlook Business, we explore this dichotomy of India’s economy—the aspirations of its young workforce against companies battling low productivity. India needs to grow at breakneck speed. Yet it cannot ignore the well-being of its workers. An anxious, depressed workforce could seriously dent India’s chances of becoming a knowledge-based economy and a manufacturing powerhouse. Safeguarding the mental health of workers and preventing burnout will be key to fulfilling India’s potential as a leading global economy.
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