My Secret Second Job

Today’s edition of Wishful Working is a 3 minute read.

At my previous full-time job, I worked no more than 40 hours per week. I rarely worked on evenings or weekends. I generally enjoyed my day-to-day work, and I had supportive coworkers and a fun office culture.

So why did I get so burned out?

It’s a loaded question with multiple answers.

First of all, that job was fast-paced, with days jam-packed with projects and tasks. The constant context-switching and lack of breathing room in my schedule definitely took a toll. Also, the pandemic was happening. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that one. But those reasons alone didn’t seem like “enough” to lead to such severe burnout. (I know. There’s a lot to unpack there. 😅)

Something really clicked in my brain when I realized that although I was “only” working 40 hours per week, I was also working a dozen or more hours of unpaid overtime every week. 

Most of us are. 

In fact, many of us do so much unpaid labor, it’s the equivalent of a second job. Some refer to it as the “second shift.”

According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics time use survey, Americans spend an average of 1.89 hours per day on activities like food prep, cleaning, laundry, and household management/maintenance tasks. That’s around 13 hours per week — a bit less (10.5) if you’re a man, more (15.75) if you’re a woman. (Yes, really.)

That’s already enough to be considered a part-time job, and if you add time spent on parenting and/or caregiving, you can easily get to 40+ hours per week — the equivalent of a full-time job. 

It’s worth emphasizing that the majority of this unpaid, “invisible” labor is carried out by women. Another study, this one conducted by the Office for National Statistics in the UK found that women carry out an average of 60% more unpaid work than men, and that one year’s worth of collective unpaid work had a value of £1.01 trillion, equivalent to approximately 56% of UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Now that I’m a freelancer I spend an average of 15-20 hours per week on work related to my freelance writing business. This means I have much more time throughout the week to fit those household tasks in, and I’ve noticed I don’t dread them like I used to. And while I still experience some work-related stress, I don’t feel like I’m constantly on the verge of burning out.

Of course, not everyone can reallocate half of their working hours toward chores and household management. For the traditionally employed and others who work a more typical full-time schedule, several things can help alleviate the burden of unpaid domestic labor. Companies and governments, listen up!! We need: 

• Generous leave policies, including parental leave

• Flexible schedules that allow employees to attend appointments, run errands, and generally handle more life stuff

• Remote work policies

• Robust public care services to support caregivers and ease the financial strain of caregiving

• Fair, livable wages

It’s slow going, but some of these things are becoming more standard already. The pandemic necessitated widespread remote work, for example, and although some executives are now begging employees to return to offices, that cat’s out of the bag. I’m excited and hopeful for what the future holds.

📚 Recommended Reading

Some of the stats cited in this edition came from this book:

See you next week,

Kara