It was my second year working in my dream job in a dream place when I found myself lying flat on the ground in the office toilet. It was 11 pm at night. I just spent about 2 to 3 days, working 14 to 16 hours a day to complete an urgent work that was due. Bouts of anxiety came constantly throughout the days, but I shove them deep down inside for the sake of completing the work, thinking that working this hard and putting my body and mind through this, would ultimately yield true happiness in the future.

However, here I am, lying on the floor of my office, unable to move, as I try to calm my fast-beating heart. My body was hot, my mind was in disarray, my stomach was churning, and I couldn’t even muster the strength to open my eyes. “It’s ok. This will all be over, and I will get back to normal, and work hard again.”, I thought to myself over and over again everytime it happened. My body disagreed this time, as it lasted for another 2 hours before my family called, concerned of course.

It was there and then, that I started to reflect and think about the question of “Why do we work?”. Being an economist … of course, I thought about why we work. Why do we need them? How has the idea and objective of working changed over time? Hopefully, I get to use some data to illuminate the economics of working and provide some useful insights to some of you who have been struggling with this question. 

Working Used to Mean “If you don’t work, you are going to starve”

Here’s a number — 49%. That was the poverty rate of Malaysians in 1970, which means that 1 out of 2 Malaysians back then were in poverty. Working back then, used to mean that if you don’t work, your whole family is going to starve. 

The standard of living back in the 1950s to 1970s was much lower. Running water is a luxury for the well-to-do, and Malaysians used to get water from rivers and wells. Cooking still required the men to chop wood for their wives, and the wives have to cook and keep the water hot for people to shower. Electricity was just a kerosene lamp and that is if they can afford it. The Human Development Index in Malaysia was only 0.53 in 1970, where anything below 0.55 indicates that the nation has low development levels according to the United Nations. 

My parents used to tell me stories of them eating only three spoonfuls of rice and a mouthful of vegetables and salted fish to get through the day. Their fathers needed to work into the night to earn enough to support their families. Furthermore, birth rates were so high back then that a typical family would have 5 to 6 children. It was a situation where if you don’t work, your family will really starve. 

Hence, the baby boomer generation (my parents’ generation), had the mindset of lifting their families out of poverty and building a next generation that does not have to suffer through lack of food and basic amenities such as water, electricity, and a home. Staying and working in a company offered stability for a generation that needed it, even though they were overworked and the management culture was much nastier and more exploitative. There was much at stake, as leaving your job or failing at your business could potentially mean an end to your family’s future.

As Life Gets Better, Workers’ Expectations and Reasons for Work Changed to “Career Progression”, rather than Survival.

I will say this. Much of the increase in the standard of living achieved in the last half-century was driven by the baby boomer generation. I know many of my generation (Millennials) and Generation Z looks at the baby boomer generation and think to themselves that they could do much better on a variety of things and issues. However, it is undeniable that their generation built the foundation, in which most of us did not grow up in poverty and had access to basic amenities such as water, food, housing, education, and healthcare.

The poverty rate has declined significantly to only 0.4% in 2016 from 49% in 1970, due mainly to higher wages for workers, profits for businesses, and wide-ranging programs to lift many of the rural folks out of poverty. Today, almost 100% of Malaysians have access to electricity and about 93% have access to clean water. For many of the millennials and Gen-Zs, living in conditions such as our parents and grandparents seem unfathomable. We went to school until at least the secondary stage. We always had enough food to eat, and clean water to drink. And we are expected to live until 76 years old, compared to our previous two generations, who were only expected to live up to 53 years old in 1950. 

See what am I getting at? The context and conditions in which the different generations lived were vastly different from each other. Where our parents and grandparents worried about survival, the subsequent generation worried less about it and focused instead on achieving more in their careers and accumulating more material wealth. The human development index improved drastically to 0.80 in 2021, from just 0.53 in 1970. Where it was common for multiple generations to live together in a single house, Malaysians now prefer to live on their own with their immediate families and hence, purchase more properties. 

The subsequent generations become more socially conscious of the world, and also more materialistic in that regard as it is human nature to seek progression in the world. This is just the next stage in human desires when we are not at risk of starving or dying. It is here that I find the philosophical challenge of trying to make sense of our lives in this modern age. What happens to our meaning of life in work when survival is not at stake?

I Think We are Struggling with Our Meaning and Place in the Modern Working World, Where Achievements and Material Wealth Are Replacing the Survival Objective.

You look at the bag you have and you spot a brand new LV bag your colleague just bought. It’s not that your bag is not functional or good. You think that the next phase of your “achievements” is to achieve the standard of being able to buy that bag. It’s not that the new LV bag is much better but it symbolizes progress in your working life that you are able to afford more and better things in life. You are fighting for the promotion to be the manager in your company, and after that, you will aim for the position as a senior manager and so on until the highest levels. That’s career progression. If you are not doing that, your peers will leave you behind and you will be stuck where you are. 

That’s life. And unfortunately, I see this everywhere I go now. It seems that we have gotten ourselves into a world where good is not good enough anymore. You need to be number one. You need to keep climbing the corporate ladder. While this may work for some people, this is not working for most of us. For some of you who think this is the way of the world of infinitely progressing, I am not saying you are wrong but this only works for the few that are lucky or privileged enough to get there. After all, they are called the 1% for a reason. Competition is good, but at what cost?

I have seen first-hand the detrimental effects of such a world on many of us. Increasing queues and waiting lines for people seeking psychiatric and psychological help in Malaysia. In 1996, only about 10.7% of the population had mental health issues. That percentage has since ballooned to 29.2% in 2015. That means 1 out of 3 of your friends has some form of mental illness. This situation is even worse in Kuala Lumpur where 39.8% of the population has mental illness problems. 

I wonder, do we understand fully the kind of world that we live in now? What is the purpose of working? Is it to survive? Or is it to achieve more things in life? And what is the line that we need to draw before lying on the floor in the middle of the night becomes a norm for many of us?