Burnout and Women in Youth Ministry
Why women might be at greater risk and have different patterns of burnout
Recently, my research and thinking has connected two streams of thought: 1) the loneliness of women in youth ministry and 2) women’s need for connection to manage stress. Because women are wired to seek to manage our stress by connecting with others, this puts lonely women in youth ministry (which, in my experience, seems to be half or more of the women in youth ministry) at greater risk for high stress levels.
That led me to a further question: are women in youth ministry at greater risk for burnout (as compared to men in youth ministry)? I’m still parsing some of this out, but my research so far indicates this is a good question. Multiple studies and experts cite high levels of ministry stress and isolation as some of the top contributors to ministry leaders burning out or quitting.1
In searching further, I’ve also found the following factors as contributors2:
Lack of confidence
Lack of autonomy, respect, and support
Job dissatisfaction
I’m singling out these factors because they are particularly common issues for women in ministry (and often more generally for women in the workplace, even outside of ministry). For example, many refer to the “sticky floor,” a concept usually noted as a counterpart to the “glass ceiling,” which describes women’s tendencies to get stuck in lower level jobs; often a contributor to this is women’s tendencies to hold themselves back due to lack of confidence. I’ve also heard many women describe a lack of autonomy, respect, and support in their ministry work - which is often made worse by their gender (whether others are doing this intentionally or not). Job dissatisfaction is a more complex topic, but suffice it to say that many issues which contribute to this are also faced by women in complex ways.
I don’t have enough data to affirmatively conclude that women are facing all of these things at higher rates than men in youth ministry. But I do know that I’m reading and hearing of women facing all of these factors in some unique and hard ways. Does that put women in youth ministry at greater risk for burnout?
Asking this question - “Are women in youth ministry at greater risk for burnout?" -presents issues, because it’s such a niche question that it’s really hard to find specific data on it. I’m not sure that researchers really care about this question. I have found some sources that refer to female clergy facing higher rates of burnout, but that’s as close as I can get.
What is interesting, though, is what I can find when I broaden the question. When you ask, “Do women face higher rates of burnout than men?,” you can find plenty of data, all of which answer the question affirmatively. For instance:
The Forbes article states that “women are facing a historically high risk of burnout, and there is a growing gap between rates of burnout for women and men.”
Most resources on burnout for ministry leaders are geared toward ordained pastors and therefore tend to mostly focus on men. Ordained pastors do have tough jobs, no doubt. What I’m curious to see more of, though, is ministry burnout literature diving specifically into female ministry leader burnout.
I would hypothesize that, if we were to look more in depth at burnout amongst women in ministry, we might find that burnout follows different patterns for them.3 I wouldn’t be surprised to find differences between men’s and women’s risk factors for burnout and unique shapes that burnout takes for each gender.
And if all (or any!) of this is true - if we are more at risk for burnout, if we have unique pathways into and out of burnout, and/or if burnout looks different for us - wouldn’t it help women a lot if we knew this and talked about it?
These are all found in the same sources listed above.
This article would seem to suggest as much.