A Global Urge to Lie Flat

Burned-out millennials and Gen Zers are quitting their jobs by the millions

- By Tom Hancock, Katia Dmitrieva, Carolynn Look, and Yuko Takeo, with Allen Wan and Amanda Wang

Around the world, millions of people are rethinking how they work and live—and how to better balance the two.

The Great Resignation has U.S. workers quitting their jobs in record numbers—more than 24 million did so from April to September this year—and many are staying out of the labor force. Germany, Japan, and other wealthy nations are seeing shades of the same trend.

The pandemic has taken a toll, with surveys showing an increase in feelings of burnout and a deterioration in mental health in many nations. But the pressure has been building for decades. Incomes have stagnated; job security has become precarious; and the costs of housing and education have soared, leaving fewer young people able to build a financially stable life.

Although the Great Resignation is a phenomenon among those who are younger than 40, it’s also reverberating across the economy and forcing a broader conversation about work. Millennials (born between 1980 and the late ’90s) and Generation Z (the demographic cohort after them) tend to marry, buy houses, and have children later than their forebears—if at all.

China’s “lie flat” movement, jump-started by a social media post from which it got its name, is also about opting out. It’s a reaction against a system in which a grueling “996” work schedule—9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—is common at tech companies and in other industries. So is unrelenting pressure from family, society, and even the government to keep climbing the ladder.