What Our 2025 Community Survey Reveals About Women, Work, and Burnout
Episode 523 | Author: Emilie Aries
Burnt out? Struggling with work-life balance? Feeling stuck at work? You’re in good company, boss!
Throughout August, I ran this year’s installment of the Bossed Up Community Survey, and wow—did I ever get a lot of impactful and thoughtful responses. Not surprisingly, a lot of what you had to say is very indicative of the broader women in the workplace trends we’ve been hearing about in reports like Deloitte’s Women @ Work, which we highlighted in episode 469.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest things you’re experiencing in your work lives and how this data will play into future episodes of the Bossed Up podcast!
Who’s in our Bossed Up community?
From the baseline questions on the survey, I learned that the vast majority of my survey respondents are well-educated middle and elder millennials (almost half of you have master’s degrees, you smarty pants). I also got some interesting details about parents in our community: we’re a 50/50 split! This isn’t going to become a parenting podcast, but I also won’t shy away from talking toddlers now and then! These stats really help me figure out what kind of content is hitting home and what will resonate best in the future.
The biggest challenges facing women at work
Let’s get into the most pressing career challenges you report facing this past year.
Far and away, the most common challenge facing our community is burnout and chronic stress. 61% of you have been experiencing this lately, and while it’s validating to be in good company, it’s upsetting to see how widespread these issues are.
Coming in next are work/life balance (47%), career re-evaluation (44%), and feeling “stuck” (39%). So if you’ve been wrestling with these big mid-life questions, know that you’re not alone, and that we’ll need to keep tackling some heavy existential questions about life, work, and purpose in the coming months.
A challenging job market
Struggling with the job search is a big one, too.
One respondent said, "I've been applying/interviewing for about a year. I was getting about one interview/month until a couple months ago, when I stopped applying. I'm burnt out. I'm scared to leave my toxic job because of layoffs and AI, and my toxic job is "safe".
Oof—so relatable and a glaring commentary on the current issues facing job-seekers. We’ve covered this lately, with Episode 521 about the rising trend of “job-hugging” and Episode 520 on how to approach the job search in this AI age. I’ll definitely be airing more on that topic.
You also have a lot to say about other professional/personal juxtapositions, like “trying to balance motherhood and building a career,” or the remote vs. in-office consideration: "I’m struggling with being fully remote and missing working in person with people. I also value the flexibility I have as a parent of two young children, so don’t want to take that for granted."
Many of you shared your honest concerns around ambition, fulfillment, and enjoying your job. One respondent is having a "hard time finding full-time work that will fulfill me mentally and financially." That pursuit of a fresh position that provides purpose doesn’t come with an easy fix, especially in this fraught job market.
There’s a lot of trying to figure out how to navigate these ongoing or inevitable transitions, and that fits with what I found out recently: my LinkedIn Learning course on how to break out of a career rut is doing so well right now that LinkedIn has approached me about updating and re-recording a new version.
Isolation on the rise
The isolation of remote work is another thread that runs through the survey responses. Lots of women cite that they miss in-person work but value their malleable schedules. I’m a big proponent of flexible hours and working from home, but the growing loneliness epidemic makes me question whether it’s a solution or just a band-aid to a bigger workplace problem. I’d love to dig further into this, as well as the ongoing negative impact of return-to-work mandates, moving forward.
The doom and gloom mindset of the current economic climate is certainly evident in this community survey, but despite the lousy job market, many of you still hope to change jobs or even your career in the next few years. Women are looking for renewed fulfillment and meaning in our work—we want to feel inspired to clock in and also not feel like our job is our whole existence.
Your responses give me so much to think about and speak to in upcoming episodes. To be honest, there have been times in the recent past when I’ve been tempted to shutter this podcast because I, like most of you, am just plain burnt out. But seeing how much this show and community mean to you has renewed my commitment to keeping these courageous conversations going in this very scary, uncertain time.
Thank you all for listening and sharing your experiences. I’m excited to see where we go from here!
Want to weigh in on any of the challenges I discussed—or missed—in this episode? Our Courage Community on Facebook and our group on LinkedIn are always there for you to share and connect with other women on work, life, and striking the tricky balance between them.
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
Episode 521, In a Tight Job Market, Job-Hugging is on the Rise
Episode 520, Using AI in Your Job Search: What You Need to Know
Episode 516, The Power Pause: Rebranding the Stay-at-Home Mom
Episode 451, The Impact of Return-to-Office Mandates on Working Moms
Bossed Up: A Grown Woman's Guide to Getting Your Sh*t Together by Emilie Aries
LinkedIn Learning, Get Unstuck: Make a Plan to Move Your Career Forward
Break out of your career rut with
this LinkedIn course that will help you move forward:
-
[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 523. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I'm excited to dive into the results from our recent 2025 Bossed Up Community Survey.
[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]
I just launched this survey at the end of July through the end of August, and so many of you weighed in. Thank you so much to everyone who participated. I thought it would be interesting to kind of look under the hood and pull back the curtain a little bit and share what you and your fellow listeners shared with me because I think your responses are indicative of, like, broader trends that I'm seeing around women in the workplace right now. And I want you to know, candidly, like, how your responses will inform the episodes that I choose to produce moving forward.
So first, let's talk about the demographics of our listener and our listenership. Just so you know where you fall in the continuum of the Bossed Up average listener, 70% of us are made up of 33 to 47 year olds. So a lot of us are talking about navigating the challenges that come with your 30s and 40s, which there are myriad challenges that sort of time in your life. So I'll be definitely centering in on those. We're super educated. 48% of us have at least a bachelor's degree, and 45% of listeners have that and a master's degree. So I thought that was a really interesting note. Makes me feel like I'm among good company in terms of being surrounded by some whip smart women.
And then parenthood. You've heard me talk a little bit about parenthood on recent episodes. And I try not to, like, make motherhood, like, so imbued in everything I talk about and everything I do nowadays. But holy s***, it like, changes who you are. So it's really hard to, like, take that lens off once you've got it on. And I actually heard from one listener who's not a parent that is considering parenthood who said, like, I hear you kind of apologizing for your parenthood perspective. Don't apologize. Which I appreciated. But it's interesting looking at the numbers here, we are totally split down the middle. 52% are not parents, and 46% of respondents are parents. So we're just about split down the middle. A few of us are pregnant with our first. Congrats. And so I'll just keep that in mind before I completely turn this into a parenting podcast, which is not my intention. I thought it was a good gut check for me to get.
But let's talk about the biggest challenges that you're all navigating. The top challenge by far that blew everything else out of the water was burnout and chronic stress, which is funny, you know, at Bossed Up, I feel like I've been talking about burnout for so long that I got a little burnt out on burnout. I got a little, like, bored about burnout. But it's such an evergreen and present challenge for so many of you. 60% of respondents selected that as their number one biggest challenge that they're currently facing. So just kind of inspired me to go back to my book, Bossed Up, that published in 2019, which opens all about burnout and gender. And I want to do some more episodes around burnout and what that looks like today because there's some new data and, like, some nuance behind it. I do a lot of speaking and keynoting on Burnout still today, and so I'll bring that into the podcast more.
I think the reason that I stopped podcasting about it was because there was no solution to offer you all. There's no nice, neat little program that can, like, solve your burnout for any of us. And so it wasn't proving to be very, like, fruitful for me as a business owner. And yet, now I have, like, a lot more freedom in terms of the episodes that I can produce that don't need to really be leading you to some funnel of any kind. I'm not a therapist. I don't want to solve your burnout, but I'm right there with you. And so I think we need to talk more about this and you'll hear hear me bring on more experts to do just that.
The second runner up that got a ton of responses too, at 47% of you selecting this was work life balance. So number one, burnout and chronic stress, 60% of you identified with. The second was work life balance, 47%. And then interestingly, the next two were career re-evaluation, 44% of you and feeling stuck 39%. So if you combine chronic stress and burnout, work life balance, re-evaluating your career, feeling stuck. Holy mackerel. These are all big existential questions about work, life, meaning, and purpose. We have some big philosophical questions that we're asking ourselves right now, which is great honestly. This is exactly the forum for us to lean into that with discomfort and express, explore that, because, my god, it's good to know I'm not alone. It feels like we're all having a very well earned midlife crisis on this podcast, which is timely and so I'm interested in exploring that further and looking under the hood with you and doing a little introspection because it seems like that's what we're navigating right now. A couple of you said you wanted a higher salary. 38%, that was another high vote getter, which I totally can understand. And then 26% of you reported facing layoffs or role elimination.
Here's a few qualitative responses that stood out to me as indicative of some of the big changes that you're navigating and big questions that you're navigating. Someone wrote quote “I've been applying/interviewing for about a year. I was getting about one interview a month until a couple months ago when I stopped applying. I'm burnt out. I'm scared to leave my toxic job because of layoffs and AI and my toxic job is safe” end quote. I thought this was so indicative of the trends that I just covered in our recent episode about job hugging. That was episode 521 and that person is really navigating what so many of us are up against, which is a high retention index, indicative of low employee optimism in the job market right now.
Someone wrote quote “I'm torn between wanting to grow, which will most likely require leaving my current role, and the comfort of being somewhere where I have a strong foundation, particularly during this period of also growing my family.” Yeah, I mean, I can relate to that. We talked about the case for the “Good Enough” job in episode 498 and just the risk tolerance that is required of job seekers today feels insurmountable for people who have responsibilities at home or anybody who doesn't want to risk unemployment right now.
Someone wrote quote “I feel like I'm at a career crossroads where I know I have experience in one field/job function, but I want to pursue a different career and I cannot get interviews for the different career.”. So feeling stuck and figuring out how to navigate a transition in your career is definitely something I want to talk about more. In fact, I just was in talks with LinkedIn Learning. They told me that my LinkedIn Learning course, How to Get Unstuck From a Career Rut, is doing really well right now. It's really popular right now, which is a sad reflection, frankly, of the market today, but it's doing so well. They actually want me to reshoot it and recreate it. So I'm going to be working with them, hopefully if all goes according to plan, to try to answer that question with a new video course out sometime in the next six months. I'll keep you posted on that.
But so many of you said, look, I'm like, I'm looking for something different, but I feel really stuck or I feel like I can't do it all. Someone wrote “trying to balance motherhood and building a career” was their biggest challenge. Yeah, the role overload. All of that feels very relatable. A couple other comments that I thought were worth mentioning, someone wrote, quote, “I'm in a mainly remote position and miss interacting with people. I'm also in an HR position and looking to grow, especially in areas outside side of recruiting”. Another person wrote, “I really like the people I work with and they value me and pay me well, but I'm struggling with being fully remote and missing working in person with people. I also value the flexibility I have as a parent of two young children, so I don't want to take that for granted”.
Both of those comments just brought up so many questions for me in terms of the burnout trend as it intersects with this broader societal isolation and loneliness epidemic. And I've been a stalwart champion of remote work for all the reasons that it benefits women and women's workforce participation with, you know, juggling all kinds of responsibilities for aging parents or childcare. But is it the solution we really need or is it a band aid for a bullet wound? I don't know. Like, I'm curious to look more into remote work because I for one, as an extrovert, I'm not cut out for full time remote work.
So I want to kind of test those assumptions a little bit, especially as we've seen workforce participation among women plummeting recently, and especially among black women plummeting in particular during this weird time of transition as return to office mandates seem to be having a negative impact on women's workforce participation. So I'm really interested in the RTO’s and the remote work trends in 2025 and beyond, and the impact it's having as it relates to participation and loneliness.
Couple other trends worth looking at. So many of you shared war stories from being laid off and looking for work for over a year and feeling seriously stressed out about the job market today, which I think are indicators of the low confidence that a lot of us have in the economy right now. A couple of quotes that are worth or that are illustrative of this. One person wrote, quote, “the company went bankrupt and I've been searching for my next role for over a year”. Another person, quote, “hard time finding full time work that will fulfill me mentally and financially”. Quote, “I lost my job in February due to federal funding cuts. Since then, I've been through a stressful and unfruitful job search”. I feel you. Back in April, we released episode 503, How To Pivot From The Public To The Private Sector. And I know so many folks have been negatively impacted by this administration's policies in one way or another, but a lot of federal employees are navigating the same uphill battle that you are.
And interestingly, despite all the doom and gloom about the job market these days, 50% of you who were surveyed shared that you're looking to switch jobs. So there's a desire to move even if there's not a lot of optimism. And 25% of you said you're looking to switch career paths altogether. So that's something that tells me okay, I would love to cover more on navigating this modern moment in the job search. You know, we've got tons of resources like our free job search guide at bossedup.org/jobsearch but I'd love to do more episodes on what this looks like today and bring more experts on to unpack AI and the job search and all of the insanity that is involved these days.
Quite a few of you also spoke about pivoting into entrepreneurship or freelancing as a response to not having success in the job search or job market right now, which I've always stayed away from entrepreneurship as the solution to employment being so tough because it is not the silver bullet people think it is. Being your own boss is really, really difficult and most, right, most businesses fail. We know this right? So I've never wanted to like present being your own boss, even here at Bossed Up as like the solution to women's workforce problems.
I'm a big advocate for our employment situation and workers rights like combined should make this workforce work for women. Period. Full stop. So, it is unfortunate, I'm a little bummed to see so many of us feeling like we have to default to being freelancers because that's how bad the job market is. So I'm just trying to think about how we can cover that or talk about that because, don't get me wrong, I love a girl boss, I really do. But it is just not the promise that it should be. And so many MLMs out there multi-level marketing schemes prey upon women's need for flexible work options and sell you on this idea of being your own boss when in reality recruiting you into their pyramid scheme is the whole point of that argument. So it's just not the solution that we think it is.
Another big trend that I want to talk a lot about that I think brings us right back to the top, around burnout, meaning, fulfillment, work/life, balance, feeling stuck, career re-evaluation is, so many of us talked about reimagining our relationship with ambition. I was just texting with my friend Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez of tooambitious.com maybe you've seen her viral videos on Instagram or TikTok. She's got a new book coming out that I just cannot wait to get my hands on. All about women and ambition. And I cannot wait to have her on because so much of what you all wrote about, to me, feels like very it's very present, this whole trad wife versus girl boss dichotomy that I've talked about with various folks on the pod. But here's what you said. Quote, “I'm not sure I want the big job. Not sure how much to give to work. I tend to give it all and burn out. Not sure if my current employer is worth staying for, but also not sure I have the energy to go elsewhere. I have two young kids and a husband who likes attention. Lol. But true. And I'm just… blah blah” and I just deeply relate to that. Like I want it all, but I also don't want to burn out. And I get that it seems like we don't know what we want right now.
Someone wrote, “I used to be more ambitious and proactive about my career, but I just don't feel that way anymore. I'm trying to keep my current job and do it well, but don't want to be overlooked or considered a low value employee just because I don't have the same career ambition”. Yep, I get that. And I guess I'm trying to figure out if this is like a moment in time trend or is it a moment in our lives? Were we all just way more ambitious in our 20s? Is this just a natural thing that happens in your 30s and 40s? Because 70% of us are in our 30s and 40s. So, I can't tell if this is all that unique to Millennials and Gen Xers or if this is just a predictable pattern.
Let's see. Two other comments here. Someone wrote, “I'm trying to figure out how to have an impact at work while also having a life outside of it”. I feel like that's not too much to ask. Am I crazy? Like that seems like that should be accessible to us. Someone said, “I'm currently 10 months into a career pause to care for my three kids. I left a high paying job due to burnout and dissatisfaction, determining if I want to re-enter the workforce and if so, if I want to change fields”. That's a really interesting approach that we talked about with the Power Pause author Neha Ruch back on episode 516. And it is, it's just an interesting progression that I'm seeing in our audience and in our community right here.
One of the most common aspirations that everyone talked about that, that a lot of our responses in the survey seemed to center on had to do with finding fulfillment. Quote, “I want to be inspired to go to work again. I want to jump out of bed excited to bring my many skills, talents and years of experience to a new adventure”. Another person wrote, “I want security, a good team, and a worthy purpose in my next role. I'd like to land at an employer I can stay with until I retire”. Doesn't that sound like a midlife ambition to you? And then someone else wrote this, which I thought was very telling. Quote, “I'm not sure what I want, which is also a problem”. I gotta call my friend Chris Castillo and have her back on the pod because that's really her area of expertise.
When I asked you all what's blocking you, what's preventing you from getting what you want out of this next phase in your career, you wrote time, fear, the current job market, and just not knowing where to start feeling overwhelmed. So those are the barriers I want us to work through together. We have so much to talk about.
So thank you for sharing all these stories from the front lines of career conundrums we're navigating. You are so not alone. If you hear yourself in this survey, like, know that there are hundreds of women who are listening to this every single week who are right there with you. I feel a renewed sense, talk about fulfillment and purpose, right? Like, I've been ready to quit this podcast on a few different occasions over the past few years because I'm right there with you when it comes to overwhelm and burnout, and reading response after response. I read many of them out loud, actually to Brad the dad. Like, reading your words about what this show means to you and what this community means to you warmed my heart.
And even though I'm as burnt out as the rest of us, I'm just like renewed in my commitment to keeping these conversations going because I feel like it's a form of therapy, honestly, it's like therapeutic for me and hopefully for all of us to be in this community together. So I'm excited and committed to continuing to create resources and host courageous conversations in this very scary time for our country in this very uncertain world that we're now living in, to help us control what we can control, right? To try to keep us moving one foot in front of the other and collectively move forward.
70% of you who filled out the survey said that you're regular podcast listeners, which is really easy for me to forget about as I sit here behind the mic talking into the void in my little home office. So thank you for listening. You keep me going. Thank you for sharing this show with the people in your world who you know could use it. And I am excited to see where we go from here.
[OUTRO MUSIC IN]
Until next time. As always, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose, even if we need to figure out what the h*** that purpose is at this, like, midlife crisis that we're all having. And together, let's lift as we climb.
[OUTOR MUSIC ENDS]
