The Hidden Impact of Emotional Labour

Every day, countless acts of care and empathy go unnoticed. Consider a restaurant server who smiles through a rude customer’s tirade, or a mom who soothes a toddler’s tantrum when dad feels overwhelmed. Or think of the friend who always listens and comforts others, and the colleague who ease tensions during team conflicts. Each of these is an example of emotional labour – the often invisible work of managing feelings, both our own and others’, to keep things running smoothly. This kind of work is essential to our families, communities, and businesses, yet it’s rarely listed in any job description or acknowledged in daily life. In this article, we’ll dive deeply into what emotional labour really means, how it shows up for both women and men, and why recognizing it matters for healthier relationships and a more equitable society.

What Is Emotional Labour?

The term emotional labour was first coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in 1983 to describe a specific aspect of certain jobs: workers (like flight attendants or customer service staff) managing or “editing” their emotional expressions to influence the feelings of customers. In other words, employees often have to smile, stay friendly, and suppress any irritation as part of their paid work. Journalist Rose Hackman, a leading voice on this topic, defines emotional labour more broadly as “the editing work of emotions that someone does in order to have an effect on the emotions of someone else.” This kind of effort can happen both in formal jobs and in informal personal settings. Emotional labour essentially means putting others’ feelings and needs ahead of your own – whether calming an angry client or comforting a friend – and doing so deliberately to help or please others.

Notably, what began as a term about workplace roles has expanded over time. Around 2015, the idea of emotional labour entered mainstream conversations about home and family life, not just paid employment. Hackman argues it never made sense to have one term for paid emotional work and another for unpaid caring work at home – “we don’t call physical labor in private something different than physical labor for a fee,” she points out. So today, when we talk about emotional labour, we mean both the paid emotional effort (like a nurse comforting a patient) and the unpaid kind (like a son patiently listening to her elderly parent). In all cases, it’s the invisible effort to manage emotions, keep others comfortable, happy, and secure, often at the expense of one’s own immediate feelings.

Emotional Labour at Home vs. at Work

Emotional labour happens in both personal relationships and professional contexts, though it may look different in each. In the workplace, it’s most obvious in service roles – for example, a retail or hospitality worker staying polite with a difficult customer, or a teacher encouraging a struggling student. Many of these jobs require a smile or supportive tone even when the worker is tired or frustrated. In fact, whole industries run on emotional labour: health care, education, social work, hospitality – all rely on workers regulating their emotions to care for others. It’s no surprise that these fields are heavily staffed by women; Hackman notes that about 78% of health care and social assistance workers are women, and an astonishing 95% of child-care workers are women. Emotional labour is built into these roles.

In our personal lives, emotional labour can be just as prevalent, though we might simply call it “being the thoughtful one” or “keeping the peace.” This includes soothing family tensions, remembering birthdays, listening to a partner’s worries, and even diffusing arguments among friends. For example, a woman might be the one who always checks in on relatives, or a man might take it upon himself to cheer up his spouse after a hard day. Hackman emphasizes that it’s artificial to draw a hard line between the emotional work done at a job and the emotional work done at home. Both involve similar skills of empathy, patience, and self-control. After all, as Hackman says, no one calls it “physical labour” vs “domestic physical labour” – work is work, whether paid or not. Likewise, emotional labour is present whether you’re wearing a company name-tag or just being a good friend or parent.

One reason this invisible work is getting more attention is that people are recognizing how exhausting it can be, especially when it piles up. Constantly managing moods, smoothing over conflicts, and anticipating others’ needs – on top of one’s regular job or chores – can lead to stress or burnout. And unlike a paycheck for a job, in personal life there’s often no formal reward or recognition for doing this kind of caring work. That brings us to the crucial question: who is doing most of this labour, and is it shared fairly?

The Unequal Burden of Emotional Labour

Research and countless personal stories suggest that the burden of emotional labour is not shared equally. In practice, it falls disproportionately on women – as well as on people in other disadvantaged or lower-power groups – both at home and at work. By ignoring and devaluing emotional labour, we effectively exacerbate inequality, allowing one group to shoulder extra work so that others don’t have to.

Statistics back up the gender imbalance. For instance, one analysis found that in 2018, men had about 49 minutes more leisure time per day than women on average. That may not sound huge, but over a week it adds up to several hours of extra rest or fun that men enjoy while women are likely handling something else. What are women doing in that time? Studies show they are often doing “invisible” household management – planning the meals, remembering the kids’ doctor’s appointments, organizing social gatherings, and so on. Hackman points out that women tend to take on the “mental work” of the household: everything from creating grocery lists to reminding a partner to take the car in for maintenance. These might not seem like purely emotional tasks, but they involve putting others’ needs first – making sure everyone is fed, the car runs for the family, etc. – often at the expense of one’s own downtime. Empirical evidence and everyday experience both suggest that women as a group do this kind of behind-the-scenes coordinating far more than men as a group.

At work, the pattern continues. As noted, women dominate many of the caregiving and service professions that require heavy emotional labour (nursing, teaching, child care, customer service, etc.). Even in other fields, women are often expected to perform extra “office housework” – like remembering birthdays, mentoring junior staff, or smoothing team dynamics – roles that involve emotional skills but don’t earn extra pay or status. Meanwhile, men in leadership may benefit from this support without realizing it. Hackman frames it bluntly: in a patriarchal system, “men benefit from the free labor of women,” especially emotional labour that we don’t even dignify as real work. In other words, society runs more smoothly because someone is tending to everyone’s emotional and social needs – and that someone is usually a woman, or someone with less power – yet this work remains largely invisible.

Importantly, emotional labour isn’t only about gender – it’s also about broader power imbalances. Hackman notes that in any unequal relationship, the person with less power often has to do more emotional labour to accommodate the other. “Anyone who has less power is going to be expected to do way more,” she explains. For example, a Black man might feel pressure to keep a white person comfortable, even at cost to himself, due to racial power dynamics. Or an immigrant worker might have to always be sunny and deferential to customers to keep her job. In these cases, emotional labour intersects with race, class, and other hierarchies. As Hackman puts it, emotional labor isn’t just a gendered problem – it’s a problem that expresses the unequal states we’re in. Those with less social power (women, people of color, lower-income individuals) often have to smile, soothe, and serve to get by, much more than those with privilege.

Invisible but Essential Work

Despite being invisible, emotional labour is profoundly essential. It’s the glue that holds families together and the grease that quietly keeps the economy turning. Rose Hackman calls emotional labor “the ultimate enabler of work”, because none of us could even show up to our jobs if not for someone doing emotional labour for us at some point. Think about it: as children, most of us were raised by someone who comforted us, taught us to manage feelings, made us feel safe – all emotional labor that enabled us to grow into functioning adults. As working adults, many rely on a spouse or others to provide a listening ear, a home-cooked meal, or simply a feeling of love and stability at the end of the day. Humans need connection and care to thrive. Food and shelter alone aren’t enough; we also need “a sense of love, connection, community, and belonging,” as Hackman reminds us. Emotional labour is what provides those human needs in everyday life.

In economic terms, this means every formal job is supported by a hidden foundation of emotional work. People can only be productive at work when their home life is underpinned by care – whether that’s a parent taking care of the kids, a partner providing encouragement, or simply the emotional skills a person learned growing up. Society assumes that as workers go out to do their paid jobs, someone (usually back home) will take care of their emotional and domestic needs. Historically, that “someone” was often a stay-at-home wife or an undervalued care worker. This assumption still lingers. Hackman notes that we take for granted the idea that workers have others to cater to their needs after hours, whether it’s cooking dinner or offering emotional support. Thus, emotional labour underpins both work and family structures, enabling productivity and stability.

The tragedy is that because this work is usually done out of love or duty – not for a paycheck – we often fail to value it. It becomes invisible. Hackman argues that patriarchal and capitalist systems have been more than happy to extract this labor for free and label it “just what women do”. When we don’t see emotional labour as “real work,” we can continue to offload it onto those with less power without accountability or compensation. This not only breeds resentment and burnout among those doing the bulk of the caring, but it also perpetuates systemic inequalities. It’s a cycle: because emotional labour is unpaid and undervalued, it doesn’t get measured or acknowledged – and because it’s not acknowledged, the people doing it (mostly women and marginalized groups) remain undervalued too.

Yet, make no mistake, emotional labour has enormous value. It contributes to happier families, more effective workplaces, and healthier, more resilient communities. If it suddenly disappeared – if no one made the effort to reassure, comfort, encourage, or manage feelings – our social fabric would unravel. As Hackman observes, a society that truly valued love, care, and connection (instead of shaming those who need these things) would be a society that thrives. By contrast, a society that ignores emotional labour and shames especially men for needing emotional support is, in her words, “deeply in crisis.”

Social and Cultural Pressures: Gender Norms at Work

Why does emotional labour so often fall along gender lines? A big reason is social conditioning and cultural norms. From an early age, many girls are taught to be people-pleasers, caregivers, and peacemakers. They get praised for being “so mature and helpful,” whereas boys might be excused from nurturing tasks or even discouraged from them. Over time, women as a group become highly skilled at emotional labour – but this isn’t simply because they’re “naturally” better at it. It’s because society incentivizes and trains them to be other-oriented. Hackman explains that women have been “incentivized from a very young age to execute these kinds of tough caregiving tasks”, and if a woman isn’t sufficiently caring or self-sacrificing, she’s often “corrected” or punished by social feedback. Families, schools, and communities tend to police women’s behavior, nudging them to be gentle, accommodating, and communal. A girl who is assertive or doesn’t want to play the caregiver may be labeled bossy, selfish, or unfeminine. By adulthood, many women internalize that their worth is tied to taking care of others.

In the workplace, this dynamic continues. A woman who doesn’t perform the expected emotional labour – say, a woman leader who is very direct and doesn’t “mother” her colleagues – may face backlash. Hackman notes that an ambitious woman is often seen as a threat; if she’s not also extra caring and nice, she’s likely to be disliked or penalized. Women in professional settings often walk a tightrope: expected to be competent and assertive (to meet job demands) and simultaneously nurturing and pleasant (to meet gendered expectations). This is an almost impossible double bind, and it takes a lot of emotional labour to navigate. Meanwhile, men are generally not held to the same standard of providing emotional comfort. In fact, men who are too emotionally expressive or nurturing might be stigmatized as weak or unmanly. Society sends men a clear message: “Real men don’t cry. Don’t show vulnerability. Don’t act too ‘soft.’” These norms discourage men from developing emotional skills or taking on caregiving roles.

The result of these pressures is a self-reinforcing cycle: Women keep doing the bulk of emotional labour because they’re expected to and punished if they don’t, and men do less of it because they’re not expected to and even discouraged if they try. As Hackman observes, if emotional labor were valued as a high-status skill, men would do just as much of it – they are certainly capable – but currently “they don’t have the same kind of crack of the whip behind them” to push them to develop those skills. In other words, it’s not ability that’s lacking in men, but incentive and social acceptance. Our culture simply doesn’t demand men to shoulder emotional tasks the way it demands it of women.

This imbalance harms everyone. Women end up overburdened and taken for granted, while men miss out on emotional richness and often struggle with feelings they’ve been told to bury. In fact, the emotional repression of men has dire consequences: studies show that men, particularly middle-aged men, have high rates of suicide, and loneliness is a growing problem among men. Hackman links this to how we raise boys and men with the “patriarchal belief that men shouldn’t have emotions”, cutting them off from emotional support and literacy. When men are shamed for needing care or tenderness, they may not seek help or even know how to process feelings, which can lead to crisis. Thus, the way emotional labour is gendered and policed – women forced to do it, men forbidden to do or even receive it – is deeply harmful and unsustainable. Breaking these norms would allow women to share the load more equally and allow men to live more emotionally fulfilling (and less pressured) lives.

Men and Emotional Labour: An Overlooked Aspect

It’s important to acknowledge that men also experience and perform emotional labour – though we don’t always label it as such. Much of the public conversation about emotional labour has (rightly) focused on how women carry a heavier burden. However, this can sometimes make men’s contributions invisible as well. In many households, men take on different supportive responsibilities that carry emotional weight. For example, a husband might handle all the financial planning for the family – managing bank accounts, tracking bills, budgeting for the future – which can be a huge ongoing mental and emotional burden. He’s doing this to ensure his family’s security, often feeling the pressure of being the “provider.” Yet, as one therapist noted, many wives “do not consider [managing the finances] part of emotional labor” and thus may not fully appreciate the stress it puts on their husbands. But ask those men, and they’ll tell you they worry about money constantly – how to pay the mortgage, save for college, avoid debt – in much the same way a stay-at-home mom might worry constantly about the kids’ wellbeing. That mental load is a form of emotional labour, even if we don’t always recognize it.

Similarly, men often handle the practical upkeep that supports the household, which can have an emotional component. Think of tasks like maintaining the car, fixing broken appliances, dealing with home repairs, managing the yard work, or negotiating with the insurance and utility companies. These chores are typically viewed as “physical” or “administrative” rather than emotional. But why do men do them? Often, it’s out of a sense of duty and care – a desire to protect the family from danger (by fixing that faulty lock), to keep everyone safe on the road (by getting the car serviced), or to provide a comfortable home. There’s an emotional commitment underlying this practical labour. In many couples, the husband is the one who will wake up early to shovel snow in winter, climb on the ladder to clean the gutters, or stay on the phone arguing with the phone company – so that his family’s life is a bit smoother. These contributions involve planning, responsibility, and often stress. They may not look like “feelings work” on the surface, but they do weigh on the person performing them.

The key nuance here is that society rarely calls these male-typical duties “emotional labour.” Culturally, we reserve that term for the warm-and-fuzzy caregiving or the social coordination that women usually do. However, if we define emotional labour as attending to others’ needs and smoothing the functioning of a household or relationship, then many traditionally male tasks qualify as well. It might be better to see them as part of the overall emotional and mental load of running a family. The blog Dr. Psych Mom underscores that when you zoom out, usually “each partner [in a marriage] has a full set of responsibilities” that contribute to the household, and it’s rare that one person truly carries it all. In healthy partnerships, men and women often contribute in complementary ways. The problem is when either partner’s contributions become invisible or taken for granted. For men, acknowledging that things like financial management or home maintenance are a form of care – and yes, even emotional labour – can help validate their efforts. For women, seeing that their partner is carrying a different slice of the emotional burden (even if it’s about worrying over finances rather than kids) can foster mutual appreciation.

In short, while women still do the lion’s share of stereotypical emotional labour, men often have their own quiet emotional duties for the family. Recognizing this isn’t about playing “who has it harder” or score-keeping. Instead, it’s about understanding that everyone has a role in the ecosystem of care. By appreciating each other’s unseen efforts – whether it’s the wife’s patience with the kids or the husband’s diligence in keeping the car safe – couples and colleagues can build more empathy. And perhaps, they can also re-balance tasks if one side is overloaded. The ultimate goal is not to diminish anyone’s contributions, but to make sure no one’s emotional labour remains invisible and unvalued.

Measuring Emotional Labour in the Workplace

To further illuminate this concept, researchers have developed ways to measure emotional labour in professional settings. One well-known example is the Emotional Labour Scale (ELS) created by Céleste Brotheridge and Raymond Lee. This academic tool breaks down the components of emotional labour that workers might experience on the job. The ELS is a 15-item questionnaire that captures six key facets of emotional display required at work. These facets include: how frequently a worker has to express certain emotions, how intense those emotional displays need to be, and the variety of emotions they must show. It also considers the duration of interactions (for instance, a customer service rep who has to stay upbeat through a long shift) and distinguishes between “surface acting” and “deep acting.”

In the psychology of emotional labour, surface acting means faking or suppressing your true feelings – like plastering on a smile even when you’re upset. Deep acting means internally trying to feel the emotions you need to display, perhaps by empathizing sincerely with a customer so that your friendliness is genuine. The Brotheridge and Lee scale measures both of these strategies, recognizing that they are common ways employees cope with emotional demands. By quantifying aspects like frequency and intensity of required emotional effort, this scale (and others like it) helps researchers understand how emotional labour impacts workers – for example, higher levels of surface acting are often linked to burnout and stress in jobs like call centers, hospitality, or healthcare.

The use of such scales underscores that emotional labour is real work with real consequences. Just because it’s not manual labor or intellectual labor doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a toll. In fact, regulating emotions all day can be very draining, and measuring it can help organizations create better support systems. For instance, knowing that a job has high emotional labour demands might lead an employer to offer extra breaks, counseling services, or training in emotional skills. It also reinforces Hackman’s point: once you measure and name something, you can’t keep dismissing it. Bringing tools like the Emotional Labour Scale into the conversation moves us closer to valuing this invisible work properly, rather than ignoring it.

Key Takeaways

• Emotional labour refers to the invisible work of managing one’s own and others’ emotions. It includes everything from calming upset children or coworkers to smiling politely at rude customers. This work often requires putting others’ needs first and is crucial for smooth relationships and customer satisfaction.

• Emotional labour occurs in both personal life and professional settings – comforting a friend or partner involves similar skills to those a nurse or teacher uses with patients or students. In recent years, experts like Rose Hackman have emphasized not separating “emotional work” at home from that at work, since both involve the same core task of caring for and accommodating others.

• The burden of emotional labour is unevenly distributed. Women, in particular, perform a disproportionate share of this work, often by social expectation rather than choice. They tend to do more of the “mental load” in households (planning meals, remembering appointments, easing family tensions) and dominate in jobs that demand emotional skills (like childcare, nursing, service roles). Other disadvantaged groups (people of color, lower-status workers) also end up doing more emotional labour to accommodate those with more power.

• Emotional labour is often essential but undervalued. It acts as the glue holding families together and the grease keeping workplaces and economies running by fulfilling humans’ basic needs for care and connection. However, because it’s seen as “just natural” or feminized work, it is frequently unpaid and invisible, which reinforces systemic inequalities. Not valuing this work contributes to burnout for caregivers and allows others to benefit without accountability.

• Gender norms and social pressures heavily influence who does emotional labour. Women are expected to be nurturing and are penalized if they aren’t (seen as unfeminine or “aggressive” if they don’t smile and care enough). Men are often discouraged from showing emotion or taking on caregiving roles, which not only leaves them doing less emotional labour but also deprives them of emotional support – contributing to issues like male loneliness and mental health struggles.

• Men also perform emotional labour, though it’s rarely labeled as such. Many men take on responsibilities like managing finances, maintaining the home’s infrastructure (cars, repairs, yard), or protecting the family, which carry significant emotional weight and stress. Recognizing these contributions as a form of care can foster mutual respect. The goal is for all emotional labour to be acknowledged and shared more fairly, rather than assumed to be one gender’s job.

Conclusion & Reflection

Emotional labour, whether it’s listening patiently, calming fears, or quietly handling life’s logistics, is the unheralded work that makes our relationships and communities tick. By shining a light on it, we can start to rebalance the scales – ensuring that this work is shared more equitably and appreciated by those who benefit from it. Importantly, valuing emotional labour isn’t about setting up a competition of who has it harder; it’s about building empathy and fairness. When we all recognize the invisible efforts others put in – at home, at work, across society – we lay the groundwork for better support, less burnout, and richer human connections.

To make these insights personal, here are a few questions to reflect on in your own life:

• Who handles the emotional labour in your family or household? Think about tasks like remembering birthdays, offering comfort, organizing events, or keeping the peace – is one person doing most of it?

• In your workplace, are certain people (or groups of people) expected to carry the emotional load? For instance, who does the mentoring and morale-boosting, and is it recognized in their job role?

• Have you ever felt the strain of emotional labour? This could be the stress of staying friendly with difficult customers, or being the friend who always listens. How did it impact you?

• Do you notice any “invisible” duties you or others perform that keep things running smoothly? What would happen if that emotional work stopped?

• How can you acknowledge or redistribute emotional labour in your relationships or teams? Small changes – like thanking someone for their emotional support, or taking on a task that eases another’s burden – can make a big difference.

By reflecting on these questions, we become more aware of the emotional labour woven into our daily lives. That awareness is the first step in creating a fairer balance – one where care and empathy are valued, and everyone, regardless of gender, can both give and receive emotional support without stigma. In recognizing emotional labour for what it is – real work that sustains us – we take a meaningful step toward healthier relationships and a more compassionate, equitable society.