Quiet Quitting in the Age of Precarity: Slacking Behavior among US Workers, 2014-2022

• In Event: 50220 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Unemployment, Exit, and Turnover

Abstract

The emerging literature on quiet quitting – a phenomenon where employees work to meet only the minimum job requirements without going above and beyond – is mostly located in the management field. It proposes that quiet quitting represents not a new phenomenon but workers’ response to the precarious and unhealthy working environment that has been developing for several decades. Engaging the sociological literature on precarious work, we contend that practicing quiet quitting as a behavior presumes a certain degree of worker autonomy in managing one’s working time and activity – a condition that tends to be less available the more precarious one’s work situation is. Therefore, instead of a direct response to unhealthy and precarious workplace, quiet quitting may rather represent the opportunity individuals possess that allow them to commit less to work. Based on our analysis using the 2014, 2018, and 2022 waves of the General Social Survey data, we find empirical evidence showing that quiet quitting (indicated by slacking, i.e., percentage of time not working as hard as one should the past week) is indeed more common among workers occupying advantageous positions and likely with better working conditions. Combining these results with existing findings of a consistently high level of reported job satisfaction in America for the past two decades, we argue that precarious work environment and negative experiences at the workplace cannot fully account for quiet quitting. Instead, the fact that the most privileged portions of the workforce are practicing quiet quitting despite having better working conditions than most suggests a certain mindset shift regarding work itself that is unrelated to whether a particular job provides relatively satisfying working conditions.

Authors

• Yu Rachel Guo, Mercer University

• Yang Cao, University of North Carolina-Charlotte