As the concept of “work-life balance” became more common, so did the rise of technology and being reachable at all hours. Switching off became an active choice – and it’s one that gen Z are increasingly happy to make, as new data from LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index shows.

I am what I do

For centuries, work was at the core of a person’s identity. People chose a trade (or inherited one) and that became their purpose in life: supplying the town with bread, building homes, fixing clothes. Work and personal identities were so intertwined that it became common practice to name people after their profession: Baker, Carpenter, Mason, Smith, Taylor. You were literally known by your job.

How different the world looks in 2026. People nowadays don’t have a career, singular, but “careers”, plural, with nearly 60% of UK professionals indicating last year that they were considering changing industries. Staying in the same job, or with the same employer, your entire career has become rarer still.

Moving away from the traditional, linear career path is also changing our relationship with work. For many professionals, life no longer revolves around their chosen profession. “I am what I do” doesn’t hold true for most, with two-thirds of UK professionals saying they work to live, not the other way around.

That sentiment is even stronger among younger generations. Three-quarters of gen Z workers – people born between 1997 and 2012 – say they work to live, rather than live to work, significantly higher than older generations. For gen Z, work may be a means to an end, rather than the reason they get up in the morning.

As we change jobs and even careers more often, decoupling our sense of self from our job might actually be a healthy thing to do, according to John Amaechi OBE, leadership professor at the University of Exeter Business School.

“It is dangerous to allow what you do to become who you are,” Amaechi told LinkedIn News. “If your occupation is your definition, trouble will follow.

“What you do can be really important – athlete, artist, business person – but it isn’t all that you are. And if you allow it to be, the rest of your life shrinks with misuse or underuse.”

Off means off

The upside to work dropping down the priority list is that you may not spend every waking hour consumed by it. FOMO (fear of missing out) is real, with friends keeping you apprised of what they’re up to in real-time on all kinds of social accounts; FOMOW (fear of missing out on work), a term popularised by the US hit series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, not so much.

Gen Z in particular have got better at protecting their downtime. In 2026, just 28% of gen Z workers say they feel guilty not working while they’re on holiday. That’s a big change compared to 2024, when 42% of gen Z’ers indicated feeling this “guilt” when they weren’t working, even if they had a legitimate reason to miss work.

Young professionals are also more protective of their personal time. “Off means off” is a creed that is lived by a majority of gen Z workers, with only four in 10 checking in with work during their time off – significantly lower than all other generations.

The boundaries between work and private life are more blurry for Millennials and Gen X workers, with half of workers in those age groups admitting to still checking in with work when they are supposed to be out of office.

Baby Boomers are the least likely to go off the grid, with 56% of professionals over 61 saying they still do some work on holiday, such as reading emails and making work-related calls. Given their experience, this may well be the price for holding more senior positions in late career.

Changing loyalties

Does the relative ease with which gen Z workers disconnect from work mean that their generation is less interested in being the “career tigers” seen among those who went before?

“There is a perception that young people no longer want to work hard, call in sick easily, and are primarily loyal to themselves,” says Laura Bas, author of the management book De GenZclopedia. “But I don’t think young people are the problem.”

“Gen Z joined the labour market at a time when burnout had been on the rise across all age groups, technological advancements had boosted productivity without translating into shorter working days, and employment felt more precarious,” Bas says.

“It’s only logical that young workers would set out clear boundaries in response to these issues. Besides, don’t we think it sensible for a new generation not to automatically adopt the old ways of working?”

Work has stopped being the be all and end all of our existence. Work-life balance has become the norm, and gen Z is bringing new attitudes and ideas to this shift, just like the generations before them have done.

Changing attitudes towards work and flexible policies have allowed people to adapt their job to their personal life, with only our last names to remind us it used to be different.

(Image: Pexels.com_Ketut Subiyanto)

The post The end of the job-centric life: how attitudes to work are changing first appeared on ESG Foundation.

The post The end of the job-centric life: how attitudes to work are changing appeared first on ESG Foundation.