Mental Health and Work-Life Balance: Gen Z’s Perspective and Learning from Previous Generations

‘Youth has become weak’, is what some young people in turn call ‘boomers’. It is correct that mental health thanks to gen Z is more negotiable than ever before, but don’t we need better and more transparent mental health care? Dirk De Wachter and Lieven Annemans are therefore happy that the taboos are disappearing. ‘We learn from previous generations.’

It seems that gen Z – born between 1995 and 2010 – handles mental health better than the millennials. They recognize the importance of mental health and want to raise awareness of the subject more prominently. Whether they can avoid the burnouts that people in their forties often suffer from today, we will only be able to determine later.

Dirk De Wachter, psychiatrist and professor at KU Leuven, would like to follow the hypothesis that we are progressing in civilization: “The previous generation, which now often has to deal with dropouts, is in a social transition and is looking for balance, something that the young generation seems easier to find. They strive for a better balance between career and free time, between work and leisure and between men and women. We learn from previous generations.”

The work-life balance is one of the biggest challenges for Gen Z people. “They must not fall into a ‘borderline split’, which is more common among millennials,” says De Wachter. “Some go completely for the career and lose themselves in it. The other extreme is that they completely ignore their careers and focus on the household. You have to nuance this and be flexible,” says Dirk De Wachter. “Career lines are no longer as linear as they used to be. A parent must be able to be there for the children and be able to make a career. It is nice that women, compared to fifty years ago, are increasingly coming to the fore and out of the box realize career combinations.”

‘Watch out for dehumanization’

“Digitization is a double-edged sword,” explains De Wachter. “I am not against technology, on the contrary. It is an incredible tool, but we must be careful that it does not become a substitute rather than a supplement to our current communication. Too much trust in digital communication entails a danger of dehumanization.” There is Dear Annemansprofessor and researcher at Ghent University, agrees: “The efficiency that technology offers is becoming countered due to a lack of personal feeling. A phone call or message is much faster, but meeting is a very important human interaction. This takes more time in the short term, but creates more connection in the long term.”

Dirk De Wachter argues for a hybrid system, where technology is an intermediate step for live meetings. “Send or call to make an appointment, not to tell your whole story. I myself was ill a year and a half ago and I thought the personal visits were so precious then. Especially at vulnerable moments, personal contact is much more binding and constructive than digital communication. Every generation, especially the digital native gen Z, for watch out. Personal contact is one of the most important factors when we talk about mental health.”

Personal contact is one of the most important factors when we talk about mental health.

Deep connections

The digital generation reaps the benefits of all technological developments, but also loses out in terms of emotional loneliness, according to the National Happiness Survey of Ghent University. Results show that, despite the convenience of digital contact, more and more people feel lonely. “It is somewhat strange to read that this loneliness also affects young people,” says Lieven Annemans. “Gen Z is in the prime of their social lives and yet one in four feels emotionally lonely. There is no lack of social contact, but young people fail to make deep connections. The lack of close relationships is one of the reasons why the happiness score fell the most this year among young people.”

The National Happiness Survey also measures fear and anxiety about the future. It turns out that Gen Z experiences the most economic anxiety. “They are relatively new to the financial world and have to deal with inflation, an energy crisis and a war that strongly affects the European market,” explains Lieven Annemans. “It is not surprising that this generation does not have a rosy picture of the future, but in reality a crisis is ‘old news’. Every few years we experience one and endure it. For the older generations, strange as it may sound, this is routine.”

Breaking taboos

There is still a taboo around psychological help. Everyone has struggles, but the step to a specialist is too drastic for many. “Too bad”, says Dirk De Wachter. “Fortunately, the younger generation is breaking the taboo. Stories by well-known Flemish people who expose difficult periods are also appearing more often. That encourages us to do the same.” A positive change is also noticeable in men. “They are moving away from the macho cliché. The population is beginning to see that talking about difficult subjects is a strength rather than a weakness. I am hopeful that it is going in the right direction.”