In the common imagination, holidays represent a moment of professional disconnection in which to dedicate oneself to physical and mental recovery. Yet, for 44% of Italians, work continues to take up space even during the holidays. This trend is captured by LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence Index, a survey that periodically analyzes the relationship between Italians and the world of work.
According to the report:
- 44% of Italians continue to check work emails, calls or messages during holidays;
- the phenomenon varies greatly based on age: among Baby Boomers the share rises to 60%, while Generation Z reaches 27%;
- 16% of those interviewed say they feel guilty when they don’t work;
- at the same time, 67% of Italians say they “work to live” and not the other way around, with an even higher percentage among Millennials (74%) and Generation Z (75%).
At first glance these data almost seem to contradict each other. If most people say they want to maintain a work-life balance, why do nearly one in two continue to check company communications even during holidays?
The most immediate answer could be that today we are simply more connected: smartphones, company chats and emails make us available anywhere and at any time. But this interpretation, alone, is not enough to explain the phenomenon. In addition to technology, the way we live our professional role, the sense of responsibility and the value we attribute to work come into play in defining our personal value.
The problem isn’t the email: it’s being able to really “switch off”.
Scientific research speaks of psychological detachment from workthat is, the ability to interrupt mental involvement with work during free time.
This concept was developed by the German psychologist Sabine Sonnentag, who has been studying the psychophysical recovery of workers for over twenty years. According to his model, “unplugging” doesn’t simply mean stopping work or turning off the computer. It means being able to interrupt even work-related thoughts. Continuing to think about a meeting, imagining the next week or constantly checking emails prevents correct psychological recovery, which allows you to reduce stress and recover energy.
Numerous studies, in fact, show that those who manage to mentally disconnect during free time have lower levels of stress and burnout and greater general well-being. Conversely, a constant mental connection to work is associated with greater emotional fatigue and less effective recovery.
In this sense, the 44% figure could indicate not so much a greater industriousness of Italians, but a growing difficulty in leaving work outside of extra-working time.
When work becomes part of our identity
But why is it so difficult for some people to disconnect? A possible explanation comes from another central concept of work psychology: la work centrality.
The term, introduced by the sociologist Benjamin Mannheim and subsequently explored by the Meaning of Working International Research Team, describes how work occupies a central position in the construction of our identity. It’s not about the number of hours worked, but about the meaning we attribute to work.
For some people, work is primarily a means to earn a salary; for others it represents a source of personal fulfillment, social recognition and a sense of belonging.
A recent meta-analysis published in Journal of Vocational Behaviorwhich synthesized over fifty years of research on more than 125,000 participants, shows that a work centrality high is associated with greater motivation, involvement and job satisfaction.
But it also highlights a possible downside. When work becomes the main element through which we define ourselves, the probability that it invades other areas of life increases, making it more difficult to truly recover during free time. The problem, therefore, arises when our work becomes so central that it is difficult to stop thinking about it.
From this perspective, checking emails during holidays is no longer just a simple digital habit, it tells us that, in a society where being productive is often synonymous with being valid, work risks transforming from an activity into an identity.
“I am worth it because I produce”: psychology studies
Within this social scenario, therefore, unplugging does not just mean closing the computer, but putting a part of the way we define ourselves on hold. And this is perhaps why some people continue to check their notifications even on the beach: not because responding to that email is really essential, but because unconsciously, continuing to work can still make them feel useful, competent and sufficiently fulfilled.
This is where a mechanism studied by work psychology comes into play: la Performance-Based Self-Esteem (PBSE). According to this model, proposed by L. Hallsten and colleagues, some people tend to evaluate their personal value mainly as a function of their performance. In this case, work does not just represent an activity to be carried out, but becomes a criterion by which one can measure oneself.
The reasoning, often unconsciously, starts from “Today I worked a lot” and arrives at “Today I am worth it because I worked a lot.”
The difference is subtle but it is psychologically enormous. This attitude stimulates thoughts like: “If I stop, I’m wasting time”, “If I’m not available, I’m doing something wrong”.
When self-esteem depends on productivity, even rest can be experienced with discomfort. Stopping means, at least temporarily, interrupting that source of personal confirmation and that sense of responsibility that defines us positively (in our eyes and also in those of others!). It is also from this perspective that the LinkedIn data according to which 16% of Italians say they feel guilty when they don’t work can be read.
Being engaged doesn’t mean being addicted to work
But does this mean that those who check their emails on holiday are addicted to work? Not necessarily.
We often tend to talk about workaholismthat is, work dependence, but the scientific literature invites us to make an important distinction. According to some insights into the model proposed by the psychologist Wilmar Schaufeli, the workaholism it is not simply about working hard or being very involved in your profession. The main characteristic is the compulsion to work: the feeling of not being able to stop, accompanied by constant internal pressure (“I keep working because it is the only way to lower my anxiety levels”). The workaholismIn short, it represents the extreme of a continuum, in which work ceases to be a choice and becomes a psychological need that is difficult to control.
But a person can deeply love their work, think about it often, and devote a lot of energy to it without being workaholic. For this reason, it would be incorrect to interpret the 44% of Italians who check emails during holidays as a sign of work addiction. Rather, these data seem to suggest an increasing difficulty in mentally disconnecting from the professional role.
Are the new generations changing their perspective?
The comparison between generations tells of an interesting cultural change. According to the LinkedIn report, Generation Z is the one that checks work communications least frequently during holidays and the one that most often says they work for a living, rather than the other way around.
This doesn’t mean that younger people work less or are less motivated, but that the criteria by which we define success are changing. More and more people also attribute value to other aspects of identity (relationships, free time, personal experiences and mental health), reducing the weight that work has had for decades in building one’s personal value. It’s a cultural shift that’s still underway, but one that could explain why young people seem to be able, at least in part, to better protect their free time and recovery.
