Identity, Gender and Bburnout: A Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 15. Activism and Alternative Organizations

Abstract

This study examines the role of gender on the persistence of self-selected occupational identities. We study the behavior of self-described activists, entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs with digital trace data. In this analysis, we are specifically interested in measuring the timecourse of burnout for those who have adopted these roles. We develop a novel method using social media data to identify over 50,000 individuals of interest. We perform a two-year longitudinal study and reach several conclusions. Entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs burn out and abandon these roles faster than activists. Gender moderates this effect. Female entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs experience a faster rate of burnout than their male counterparts. For activists, this pattern is not present.

Authors

• Jason Jeffrey Jones, State University of New York-Stony Brook

• Sienna Thorgusen, State University of New York-Stony Brook