Emotional Labor Today: How Work and Gender Norms Have Changed

What Is Emotional Labor? The Academic Origins of a Widely Used Phrase

Few academic concepts have crossed over into everyday conversation as successfully as “emotional labor.” Today, the term is commonly used to describe almost any form of emotional effort—especially the unwanted kind—that people exert to keep difficult situations running smoothly. But the phrase has a much more precise origin than its modern, casual usage might suggest.

Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild first introduced the concept in her landmark study of the airline industry. Drawing on broader theories about work, gender, and social interaction, Hochschild used “emotional labor” to describe something very specific: the ways in which organizations in the growing service economy manage and commodify their workers’ emotions. In this framework, workers are not just paid for their physical effort or intellectual output—they are paid to produce feelings in others and regulate their own emotional states as a core part of the job.

A Study Built on Contrasting Roles

Hochschild’s research centered on two very different groups of employees at a major airline: flight attendants and bill collectors. This pairing was deliberate, as it allowed her to observe how emotional labor reinforced gender inequality in the workplace.

Bill collectors, who were predominantly men, were expected to instill feelings of fear and intimidation in the people they called. Their emotional performance was one of authority and pressure. Flight attendants, on the other hand, were mostly women, and their job required them to make passengers feel cared for, safe, and supported.

These expectations were not arbitrary. They aligned almost perfectly with traditional cultural assumptions about how men and women should behave. Women have long been encouraged to be warm, accommodating, and deferential, while men have historically been granted more freedom to express aggression and assert dominance. In Hochschild’s view, the airline industry did not simply reflect these gendered norms—it weaponized them for commercial purposes.

Why Hochschild’s Concern Went Beyond the Workplace

Hochschild’s deeper concern was not just that companies asked workers to perform emotions. It was the extent to which corporations could compel and control the creation of something deeply personal: a worker’s very feelings. When a company dictates not only what you do, but what you should feel while doing it, the boundary between your professional self and your private self begins to erode. The ability to manage one’s own emotions becomes a marketable skill, bought and sold alongside more tangible forms of labor.

This raised important questions about autonomy and selfhood. If an employer can purchase your smile, your patience, or your capacity to absorb a customer’s anger, what remains entirely your own?

Nearly Fifty Years of Research

Hochschild first coined the term in 1979, and her work opened the door for decades of follow-up research. Since then, scholars have examined emotional labor across a wide range of professions, including:

• Fast food workers
• Police officers
• School principals
• Nurses and healthcare providers
• Retail associates
• Customer service representatives

Each of these studies has added new layers of understanding to Hochschild’s original framework, exploring how different industries demand different types of emotional performance and how workers cope with those demands.

It has now been nearly 50 years since Hochschild’s initial publication, and the world of work has changed dramatically. The rise of digital communication, remote work, the gig economy, and a heightened public conversation about mental health have all reshaped the landscape she first analyzed. This raises a natural and important question: have the contours of emotional labor changed alongside the society that produced them?

Changing Norms Around Work and Emotions

To understand this shift, it's necessary to examine two interrelated factors: the evolving nature of employment and our modern understanding of emotional expectations. The landscape of work has become markedly more precarious and uncertain for a significant portion of the workforce. The widespread practice of reclassifying employees as independent contractors allows companies to reduce labor costs, but it often comes at the expense of job security. Workers in this situation frequently lack the benefits and protections associated with traditional full-time employment, such as health insurance, paid leave, and retirement contributions.

Furthermore, many employees find themselves bound by noncompete clauses. These agreements restrict their ability to seek employment with competitors after leaving a company. The practical effect of these clauses is that they can make it considerably more difficult for individuals to pursue better opportunities, effectively tying them to unsatisfying or low-paying positions. This combination of factors paints a picture of a workforce facing heightened instability. It is no surprise that this environment contributes to increased levels of stress, anxiety, and worry for many people.

The Evolving Language of Emotional Labor

Simultaneously, public discourse surrounding emotions, interpersonal relationships, and gendered expectations has expanded significantly since the time of Hochschild's initial research. Society has developed a richer vocabulary to describe the unseen work often performed by women. The concept of the "mental load" or "cognitive labor" is now widely recognized. This refers to the often unspoken and invisible responsibility of managing a household's operations—tracking appointments, coordinating family schedules, remembering school obligations, and anticipating the needs of others.

Another term that has entered the mainstream is "mankeeping." This describes the emotional support work that women frequently undertake in heterosexual relationships to manage their partners' emotional well-being. This concept is particularly relevant given research showing that men report having far fewer close friendships and sources of emotional support compared to women. As a result, partners often become the primary, and sometimes only, confidant.

This modern understanding provides a much clearer analysis of how everyday patterns compel women to perform the essential work of maintaining social and organizational ties. These tasks are often invisible and go unacknowledged, yet they are crucial for the smooth functioning of families and workplaces. The language we now have allows us to name and examine these dynamics in ways that were previously less accessible, shedding light on the persistent and often unappreciated burdens that many women carry.

What Does Emotional Labor Look Like Today?

These broader economic and cultural shifts form the backdrop for understanding how emotional labor functions in the contemporary workplace. It is easy to see how the expansion of precarious, short-term employment would intensify the pressure on service workers to project warmth and make customers feel valued. At the same time, the reality for many in low-wage service roles is that burnout and heavy workloads leave little energy for the “service with a smile” that employers advertise.

Another significant development is the growing corporate tendency to treat labor as an expense to be minimized rather than an asset to be developed. This mindset makes it easier for companies to eliminate positions that carry a high emotional load, particularly in sectors such as food service and retail. Meanwhile, research has made it clear that many workers, particularly women, are also performing substantial emotion-related work in their households, personal relationships, and other parts of their private lives.

When these factors are considered together, a concerning picture emerges. The demand for emotional labor appears to be rising at the very moment when the quality of the jobs that require it is declining. Workers are being asked to deliver more emotionally while operating under increasingly difficult conditions.

From my perspective as a researcher, the growing body of knowledge about the emotional and social demands of work is a positive step. We now have a clearer view of how these pressures operate in both public and private settings. This understanding is especially valuable because it reveals how expectations around emotional performance can quietly reinforce gender inequality in ways that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The key takeaway is that addressing the consequences of emotional labor requires more than simply examining its effects on workers. We must also confront the underlying dynamics and structural conditions that generate these demands in the first place. Only by understanding the root causes can we hope to create workplaces where emotional labor is recognized, valued, and fairly distributed.