The Alarming Stress of Young People

The harm of stress is often thought to be limited to the old and invalid: a high-earning businessman has an early heart attack because of his job, or the stress of losing a loved one sends a senior citizen into illness. Yet this harm can be caused by stress in youth many years earlier. Unfortunately, high stress in young people is exactly what has been discovered.  Workplaces have made young people highly stressed, and this is a short and long-term risk to their health.

Changes in characteristics of the workplace also forecast worrying trends that may plague the workplaces where young people forge their professional lives. These trends have been extensively reported on and, in many cases, relate to changes that the internet and other digital technology have ushered in. For example, the now-commonplace smartphone has enabled email on-the-go, and services such as Google Docs allow collaborative drafting without meeting in person.  In short, working is now more convenient, and this trend is unlikely to stop.  Unfortunately, convenience is part of the problem. Because employees have gained the ability to communicate at nearly any time of the day, their managers expect them to do so, and this results in more hours worked outside of the office. This type of work has some destabilizing effects. More work outside the office impedes the ability of young people to regulate their schedule and devote time for personal pursuits and stress reduction. Another factor: the amount of part-time work in the American economy is rising, and part-time work has especially risen in prevalence among young Americans. Almost a fifth of all part-time work is done by people between 20 and 24 years old. Unfortunately, part-time work comes with its own set of difficulties. Workers have less money from their work, and overcoming this deficit through working multiple jobs means dealing with multiple requirements and a difficult schedule.

Statistics show that young people in particular are highly stressed, and much of this stress relates to their work arrangements. The American Psychological Association’s annual Stress in America survey takes nationwide data on perceptions about stress and stress-caused symptoms. The 2013 survey breaks respondents into four age groups: millenials, gen Xers, baby boomers, and matures. The youngest of these groups, millennials (18-  to 33-year-olds), show the most concerning responses in a number of different categories. Millennials are tied for the highest level of stress reported, and 39 percent report that their stress has risen in the last year, the highest of the age groups. Only 29 percent of millennials report doing an excellent or very good job of managing stress, the lowest of the four age groups. Millennials also show the highest percentage of individuals reporting work as a “somewhat or significant stressor,” 76 percent, and this is 11 points higher than the next highest group. This could suggest one of two things: either the workplaces in which millennials work are stressful by nature, or millennials are not equipped for dealing with workplace stress. Regardless of the reason, stress in these young people is painful and can be the cause of mental and physical health degeneration.

One group of young people are particularly vulnerable in the coming years to rising stress: single mothers. The percentage of American mothers raising a child while unmarried rose 80 percent from 1980 to 2007, and 62 percent of women  between 20 and 24 years old who gave birth in 2011 were unmarried. Single mothers in the United States have more difficulty than those of other countries. Over 85 percent of these mothers report “severe time shortage,” a higher percentage than any other country in the developed world. There is simply too much to do, and in many cases, work must take priority over spending time with children because there is no other source of income. These women may turn to marriage to relieve financial pressure. But this comes with a loss of control over the specific conditions of marriage: as a recent Atlantic article puts it, “wanting a certain lifestyle, or fighting against societal pressures to marry, are both questions of privilege.” If the trend of increasing single motherhood continues, the young women of today will increasingly be subjected (or are already being subjected) to highly-stressful situations.

Stress is not something that should be dismissed; it causes real harm to its victims and disproportionately harms those who already suffer from other difficulties. Stress is correlated with increased morbidity and death from heart disease, diabetes, common colds, immune deficiency syndromes, and more. One might think that the work stress these young people have would be a transient problem, overcome as they settle into long-term jobs. But even transient stress can cause long term impacts. Stress causes illness by degeneration, so the damage it causes might only be reflected in illness many years later. Stress itself is also correlated with recurrence of stress, which multiplies its harm over time. As Stanford biologist Robert Sapolsky writes, “early-life stress…with every passing bit of aging, gets harder and harder to reverse.” Stress also exacerbates the harm that poverty has on the individual. Socioeconomic status early in life has shown to be correlated with degenerative disease, regardless of the present income. And if certain trends of the workplace continue, then higher levels of workplace stress might be here to stay. We should be concerned about this: anything that threatens the health and equality of society should draw attention. Workers should demand measures to reduce the stress they suffer from their employment.