Gen Z burnout and the rise of quiet quitting, quiet cracking, quiet divorcing

Whether it’s a relationship losing its spark or a dream job losing its meaning, more young adults are choosing not to fight the collapse anymore. They are staying and, in the process, losing their sense of self.  

Gen Z burnout isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with breakdowns or dramatic exits but shows up as emotional withdrawal. Quiet quitting. Quiet divorcing.   

“Quiet quitting” entered the cultural vocabulary as a workplace term. A 2023 study defines “quiet quitting” as people refraining from doing more work than they were contractually obligated to do. “It’s actually an enhanced way of dealing with job stress, disengagement, and burnout,” it stated. Its successor, now labelled “quiet cracking”, captures something darker: people continuing to perform while already exhausted.

The scale is harder to ignore. Microsoft’s 2021 survey of 30,000 workers found that more than half of Gen Z employees were considering leaving their jobs. Gallup reports that only 21 per cent of workers feel engaged at work. Burnout, the World Economic Forum warned, is now a structural risk for young professionals.  

In a culture that rewards constant performance, mentally checking out has become a survival strategy. Exhaustion is no longer an interruption, it is becoming a way of life. The triggers for switching to autopilot mode are plenty. The question isn’t why people are checking out; it’s why disappearing has started to feel safer than confrontation. What once looked like burnout now looks like adaptation.

A toxic work environment and the slow erosion of motivation 

For six years, Bengaluru-based photographer Rohan Surti shot concerts and automobiles. The pandemic erased his work overnight. By 2021, he was shooting weddings, baby showers, and even a funeral. 

Surti found himself falling out of love with his passion, enhanced by the difference in the way his new clientele was treating him. “Photography was viewed as a service rather than an artform. So, I zoned out and was in autopilot mode for eight months, hanging on because the pay was decent,” he says. He moved into a marketing job in 2021 and PR a year later. The work drained him—there was little appreciation and even less recognition. 

“People may think they don’t need validation but it helps when you know you’re doing a good job or make good money. If your immediate boss says your work isn’t good enough, it’s demotivating,” says Surti, describing an underlying toxic environment which made him doubt his own abilities. “I would have to proofread 20-word emails multiple times,” he adds. , 

What Surti was living through has a term: quiet cracking. It stretched into two years of anxiety, daily demotivation, and waking up already dreading work.

For Mayank Bahl, a business consultant in arts and culture in New Delhi, it went beyond lack of positive feedback. One organisation he worked with began withholding information about revenue generated through strategies he had built. He had no way to track the sales his work was driving, even though the visibility would have helped him do his job better. It was enough to make him mentally check out while still in the job for nearly a year.

“MORE THAN A GENERATIONAL PROBLEM, QUIET QUITTING IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES WE’RE LIVING IN” - Rohan Surti

Another hiccup was projects letting go of freshers Bahl had spent time training when they asked for a raise, expecting him to train a new  batch. 

“You watch yourself erode as the lack of motivation leads to lack of creative ideas because you tend to go with the safe option,” he says. “The frustration started to seep into my other work.” Bahl started doubting his abilities. He drank and smoked more. His sleep was fractured. Nights brought work nightmares. Mornings began with anxiety. He grew irritable. His confidence thinned. 

It’s a pattern many young professionals recognise but rarely name. It’s the quieter shape burnout takes now—people keep functioning, they meet deadlines, show up, and reply to emails. From the outside, nothing collapses. Internally, the withdrawal is already underway. This quiet endurance is not accidental.

How capitalism supports the autopilot living 

When work has no boundaries, it spills into every other aspect of life. “It’s normalised to not speak up at work and then deal with the frustration in your personal time,” says Bahl. 

The pressure is structural. India’s formal job market shrank by 5.8 per cent in July 2025 after two months of growth, while job postings have fallen 21 per cent since January 2023. In a shrinking economy, leaving one’s job is often a risk. 

“A toxic environment at work is also a capitalist move in some ways—if you put someone down, they can’t ask for more money,” says Bahl. 

“Capitalism leads to a functional but zombie-like state of living. There’s a systematic way in which capitalism has evolved to engulf every bit of counter argument and appropriated it,” says sociologist Shambhobhi Bagchi. “There’s also the fact that when people move to cities with the promise of a better future, it’s difficult to give up on it, especially since the lifestyle of the ‘urban poor’ is considered more appealing than a moderate suburban life,” she adds. 

“THE FACT THAT THERE’S A SALARY COMING IN AT THE END OF THE MONTH IS ENOUGH TO KEEP THEM GOING LIKE MACHINES. IT’S SIMILAR IN RELATIONSHIPS” - Shambhobhi Bagchi

Financial reality locks people into emotional autopilot. Surti continued his toxic job partly because it was a small team and he had a lot of responsibilities. “Plus, experience is crucial to get a good role, so I waited it out working a job I had already settled into even though I was unhappy,” he says.

A similar logic follows people home. Finding discomfort can feel safer than uncertain freedom. It’s one of the reasons people remain in relationships and marriages long after they have emotionally checked out. 

Quiet divorcing and the rise of relationship burnout 

Enter ‘Quiet Divorcing’, defined by The Guardian as “when couples check out of their marriage emotionally without formally separating”. Quiet divorcing has become shorthand for relationship burnout. Partners remain together in form while emotionally withdrawing in practice.

A 2018 paper found India has one of the world's lowest divorce rates, at 11 per cent,  adding that “fear of social isolation, a sense of duty to extended families and financial dependence put pressure on couples to stay together.”

Modern dating doesn’t escape this logic either. Dating app fatigue is pushing people to stay in stagnant relationships because uncertainty feels worse than dissatisfaction. “Dating apps drain people emotionally thanks to ghosting. People are exhausted. So, when someone is already in a relationship-even one that doesn’t feel good-they might stay in it because it's at least familiar. Starting over feels tiring and being alone feels heavier,” says Dr Malini Saba, psychologist and Founder-Chairman, Saba Family Foundations. Ghosting, meanwhile, has normalised emotional exit without an explanation. “For the person who ghosts, it becomes an avoidant habit,” she adds.  “Over time, people stop expecting honesty and stop trusting consistency. Ghosting hasn’t just changed dating - it’s changed how people handle emotions.” 

“Sometimes, in situationships, it’s also a question of why give something closure when it’s not needed. I don’t want to take that accountability,” says Jayashree, a New Delhi-based education consultant who quietly quit her relationship of a year due to lack of mental stimulation. 

She stayed when she discovered her then partner was planning a surprise birthday party, hoping the gesture would revive the spark. Instead, she spent the night feeling guilty, and ended the relationship a week later. 

But Jayashree didn’t give him a clear reason why she did so, blaming her own emotional state for it. Avoiding closure kept her options open, even delaying confrontation.

“Part of not giving closure is having the option of going back later, besides a means to escape accountability,” says Jayshree, who describes those indecisive weeks as anxious and jittery.

Sameer, a chef from Uttarakhand, recognised the pattern later than he expected. Heated arguments with his long-distance partner forced a realisation: he had mentally exited the relationship months earlier.  

“I always thought I would never give up on a relationship. It took me a while to realise that that’s impossible in light of foundational differences or practical issues,” he says. The guilt wasn’t just about leaving; it was about abandoning the version of himself who never would.  

“Being a die-hard romantic, having grown up on, like most millennials, Shah Rukh Khan movies such as Veer Zaara, where love conquers all, didn’t help,” adds Sameer. 

Romantic idealism collides poorly with emotional burnout. For Piyali Kar, a producer based out of Manali, Bollywood narratives extended a relationship she had already left mentally two years earlier. “I saw the red flags, but being a romantic hopeful who thinks love has painful moments that one must endure, I held on. Besides, in India, women are taught to compromise and sacrifice,” says Kar. 

When she finally ended the relationship, the absence of sorrow surprised her. “I stayed quiet for two anxious years because I knew my partner would react badly. A silence that made me irritable and angry,” observes Kar. 

“That’s a relationship where fear has replaced safety. It could just be that the person's reactions feel unpredictable. When there's anger, emotional collapse and blame, a person will think that if they leave, it will cause damage–a fear that could come from past experiences,” says Saba. Additionally, she notes, “Attachment plays a role. Some people stay because they feel responsible for everyone else’s emotions. Others want out but don’t know how to face uncomfortable conversations or being seen as the bad one.” 

Unlike quiet quitting at work, relationship burnout doesn’t come with a payslip attached. There’s no financial contract forcing people to stay. And yet the instinct is familiar. Leaving still carries cost: emotional upheaval, social fallout, the fear of starting from zero. Quiet divorcing becomes the relational version of quiet quitting. Instead of rupture, people choose endurance. Instead of confrontation, they choose a slow retreat.

“Anxious attachment style amplifies quiet divorcing. Those people may have made up their minds to walk out, but they don’t because they are too anxious and scared of losing relationships possibly due to a past trauma,” adds Sheena Sood, psychology consultant and counsellor at P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Mumbai.

Five months into a fast-moving relationship, Harsh Barar, a New Delhi-based singer-songwriter, noticed the growing distance first. Calls went unanswered,  meetings felt strained, even casual questions irritated his then partner. The withdrawal was gradual and unmistakable.

The uncertainty showed up physically. His anxiety spiralled into aches and panic attacks. Days later, the relationship ended with a familiar line: it’s not you, it’s me. 

“I used to stay away from confrontation. But today, I realised that some amount of confrontation is healthy. And being upfront works best, even if it causes drama. But people aren’t direct because they are trying to not be the bad guy—which leads to quiet quitting,” says Barar.  

Barar’s realisation is personal. The pattern behind it, however, is social.

“When a person is taught to keep quiet, 'not make trouble', 'be grateful', and 'others have it worse', it gets internalised. When work or relationships get stressful or draining, the first thing people do isn’t confront it but try to survive it,” says Saba. “It’s more like a coping mechanism, more than escapism.”

The gender politics of quiet divorcing 

Healthy confrontation is difficult to practise in a culture that discourages it. In India, relationship burnoutis rarely just personal—it sits inside gendered training.

“IN INDIA, WOMEN ARE TAUGHT TO COMPROMISE AND SACRIFICE” - Piyali Kar

“When a person is born and brought up in an ego-centric, patriarchal household, they are taught to weigh the pros and cons of confrontation, which also trickles into casual dating today,” says Jayshree, who has grown up learning to avoid confrontation unless it’s something she is ethically against. “More women quietly quit relationships because they are taught to be more fearful of confrontation,” she adds. Silence is often the outcome of social training. In many households, confrontation is treated as failure while endurance is treated as virtue. Such training often follows people into adulthood. When something breaks, the first response isn’t exit; it’s to tolerate.  

“More women in India tend to take longer to break up, even if they have checked out of a relationship, because they are also subjected to more scrutiny in separations,” says Bagchi. “Unhappy marriages have always been present in India. Growing up in those homes teaches children that marriage is about endurance, not happiness,” adds Saba.“They learn to suppress feelings, adjust, and stay quiet. And later in life, it makes it really hard for them to trust themselves or believe they can choose differently.” 

Social judgement didn’t end with “log kya kahenge”. It’s digitised. Relationships leave visible footprints. When they change, the absence is noticed.  

“There’s a lot of shame attached to it too. Content creator Kusha Kapila’s divorce, for example, was talked about for months. Even though many may claim to have moved on from living their lives according to ‘log kya kahenge,’” says Sameer. 

“Today, internet fame has given rise to mini-celebrities, and people get attached to their stories, even taking sides in break-ups—which is also why people use their relationships as content that gets engagement. That kind of pressure can’t be good for any relationship,” he adds.

“GHOSTING HASN’T JUST CHANGED DATING - IT’S CHANGED HOW PEOPLE HANDLE EMOTIONS” - Dr Malini Saba

For many people, the hardest part isn’t leaving. It’s telling everyone else they left. Quiet divorcing lets people leave without turning the breakup into a public event. There’s less explaining to do and fewer people involved in the ending. 

Why quiet quitting isn’t an option for everyone  

Quiet quitting reads like a generational headline. The reality is more uneven. 

“Though millennials were raised to adjust, hold on, not complain, and value stability, Gen Z seems more comfortable leaving what isn’t working for them. But it’s not about generations alone—it is more about whether someone feels safe in an equation to choose themselves,” says Saba.

“For example, if someone from North East India wants to live in a less racist neighbourhood, or a queer person wants to live in a more inclusive neighbourhood, they have to be able to make a certain amount of money to be able to afford it. Then the question becomes: Does one keep a slightly shitty job or lose access to a safe neighbourhood?” questions Bahl.  

Speaking up is easier when the consequences are absorbable. For many people, leaving doesn’t just risk their income. It risks housing, networks, family approval, and the fragile stability they’ve built. The decision isn’t between happiness and unhappiness but between discomfort and uncertainty. Endurance, in that context, can feel like the safer calculation.

The Gen Z voices most visible in these conversations tend to be urban and buffered by financial cushion. “The remaining Gen Zs are also scared of what a 35-year-old millennial is scared of: making enough money to pay the bills and keep their job,” says Bahl.  

“More than a generational problem, quiet quitting is a sign of the times we’re living in,” adds Surti. Exit isn’t symbolic. It rearranges everything. And it’s happening in a time when very little feels stable to begin with.  

“Stability is something millennials crave. So, the fact that there’s a salary coming in at the end of the month is enough to keep them going like machines. It’s similar in relationships,” says Bagchi. 

That endurance itself, Bagchi sees as a cultural base line. It is a significant marker of how low the bar is set for people when it comes to multiple aspects of life.  “With so much going on in the world, people are lowering their standards and normalising a zombie-like state of life. Staying quiet leads to normalisation of things. And how much people are willing to bear before they break speaks volumes,” she notes. “Because, realistically, do we really have that kind of courage as a society—especially since we are so fragmented—to let go of something constant even though we don’t like it?”