Fewer hours and more work-life balance: What the ‘lazy girl job’ trend means for the workplace

By Aoife Barry

A decade ago, Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In encouraged women to be more assertive in the workplace. After generations of top-down sexism, she wanted to show women they rightly deserved corporate power.

What followed was the era of the ‘girl boss’, which coincided with hustle culture as millennials fought back against institutional sexism and prioritised their careers.

Then came the pandemic, and the manifold changes it brought to the workplace. Chief among these was working from home, which showed many people that a new work-life balance was possible when they didn’t have to go to an office.

Attitudes towards work are shifting

This meant that when the ‘new normal’ emerged, attitudes towards work amongst the younger Gen Z generationhad shifted.

They realised that while girl boss and hustle culture had laudable aims, they could result in a life more about work than anything else.

Gen Z wanted to do things differently. The first sign of this shift was the emergence of the quiet quitting trend on social media in 2022.

Any phrase that uses the word “quitting” is going to raise eyebrows. But quiet quitting was a rejection of the hustle culture, and a refusal to do more work than people were being paid for.

Rise of the Lazy Girl Job

This summer, on quiet quitting’s heels, came a new spin on things: “lazy girl jobs”.

The woman who coined the phrase, TikTok influencer Gabrielle Judge, says a lazy girl job is “basically something you can quiet quit”.

“There’s a lot of jobs out there where you can make 60-80k, so pretty comfortable salaries, and not do that much work, and be able to work remotely” explains Judge.

To her, a lazy girl job is one that pays you enough that you don’t worry about the cost of living, is safe and is flexible time and location-wise.

It isn’t a case of one size fits all, says Judge – it’s more about adjusting your mindset. (Judge also notes there is “still something very sexy” about having a 9-5. Phew.)

But one of the issues with the lazy girl job is the name, which is gendered and can denote an idea of women wanting to be lazy in the workplace––not a welcome notion after decades of women struggling to be treated equally.

In answer to that, Judge goes into a lot of detail on her TikTok account about what qualifies as a lazy girl job. She clarifies that it’s not actually about laziness, or what she calls “mouse jiggling”, also known as sitting there doing nothing.

Another issue with lazy girl jobs is the idea that they are so flexible they allow parenting and work to happen in tandem.

For some parents, a happier situation is when there’s a clear delineation between their work day and parenting, rather than chasing both at the same time.

Searching for true flexibility

At its core, there’s plenty a person of any gender can take from the notion of lazy girl jobs.

Essentially it’s about reassessing work-life balance and working jobs that allow for flexibility while compensating you effectively.

This should cut down on feelings of being taken for granted, or being resentful of your role, which will also make your employer happy.

The notion can also help you assess if you’re currently in the right job, or if there are better options out there for you.

Do you work in a job where there’s an off-kilter work-life balance, or where the sort of lifestyle you’d love feels completely out of reach? Is your job forcing itself into too many hours of the day? If you pictured your ideal day, how close to your current day does it actually look?

TikTok trends will come and go, and we can ignore those we don’t find useful. But some trends can encourage us to look deeper into parts of our own life.

If lazy girl jobs is making you think about a move, here are three roles from the Euronews Job Board that tick the boxes if you’re looking for a more flexible role with great benefits.

Apex Software Developer, Regiocom SE, home office

This work-from-home role at German company Regiocom SE will see you supporting the team in all phases of the software life cycle, from conception to post-release documentation. The company offers flexible work options and family-friendly working hours, has a company restaurant, pension scheme, offers free sports courses (with its own health trainer), and provides table football and table tennis for use during breaks. Apply for this job here.

Senior Data Scientist, SumUp, Berlin

If you want to work from home, this role would be suitable for you once you live in the location of a SumUp office in Europe. SumUp provides digital services to entrepreneurs, and as a senior data scientist you will be responsible for building and optimising machine learning models and algorithms and measuring the impact of the data products. The company has a global team of more than 3,000 people, and staff get together regularly for breakfasts, team events, office parties and sports, plus it has a pension scheme and other benefits. Find the full information here.

Senior Software Engineer, Banking, Spendesk, Berlin

Spendesk has a “friendly remote policy”, 28 days of annual leave, a monthly budget of €50 for wellness-related spending, and a platform for emotional and mental well-being, among other benefits. This role in its banking section will involve developing and maintaining the API that offers banking services within Spendesk, and the back office that allows internal auditors to operate the banking platform. All the details can be found here.

Looking for a new role? Check the Euronews jobs board for more roles that offer flexibility and benefits

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