Taboo or timely? Younger women press hardest on mental health issues

How satisfied — or frustrated — are you with the level of mental health benefits that your employer provides?

Some surprising answers emerge from the latest U.S. edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey, conducted from March 12 to April 22. A total of 13,432 respondents were asked to identify the top benefits that they’d like to see from employers. 

Choosing among seven options, only 16% of the entire group identified free mental health benefits as one of their top three priorities. Other options, such as greater flexibility in work locations or a four-day workweek, ranked far higher. But when the spotlight turns to three key demographic groups, mental-health support looms much larger.

Female respondents of all ages lead the way in prizing the value of free mental health services. The survey found that 21% of American women identified free mental health benefits as a top priority, versus just 12% of men. There’s been abundant reporting documenting the degree that women, particularly working mothers, have shouldered larger burdens as the COVID-19 pandemic has played out.

Younger workers stand out as well. A hefty 32% of Gen Z respondents (people born in 1997 or later) cited free mental health benefits as top priority. By contrast, just 11% of baby boomers (born in the 1946-1964 period) did so. Also of note: 20% or more of respondents identifying as Black, African-American, Latino or Hispanic picked free mental health benefits as a top priority.

As seen in the chart above, a two-factor analysis that looks at age and gender simultaneously yields even larger disparities. The highest support for free mental health services comes from Gen Z women, at 37%. At the other extreme, only 9% of baby boomer men rated such coverage as a top priority.

Even high-achieving women such as Reshma Saujani, cofounder of Girls Who Code, acknowledge the strains of current times. As excited as she is about long-term opportunities, on a day-to-day basis, “I’m a little tired,” Saujani recently told the podcast hosts of Friends With Mental Health Benefits. “I’m grinding.”

Over the past 15 years, employers’ benefits packages have advanced significantly in terms of the degree of mental-health coverage that’s offered. A crucial turning point was the 2008 passage of the Federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.

This law addresses issues such as copayments, deductibles and the extent of available coverage. It applies to most (though not all) employers; it requires a level field in coverage for mental and physical conditions. In addition, marketplace plans offered under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 regard mental health coverage as essential services.

In practical terms, however, employees looking for counseling or higher-intensity services have sometimes felt frustrated with limited provider availability in many mental health coverage networks. Another stressor can be the degrees of scrutiny and review that must be adhered to before coverage can begin.

Amazon made headlines in May 2021, when it announced that it was providing free counseling to all of its 950,000 employees at the time. Beth Galetti, the Seattle company’s senior vice president for people experience and technology, said at the time that this initiative “will help us remove barriers and unnecessary stigma around getting help.”

More recently, as pandemic-related anxieties become less prominent in public conversation, employers may be tempted to cut back on enhanced mental health benefits, staff writer Melissa Angell recently wrote in Inc. Her advice: “Don’t.”

Even something as fundamental as burnout can go unrecognized, Angell wrote. She encouraged employers and colleagues to pay attention to symptoms such as exhaustion, disassociation from the job, and a lack of motivation.

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000 U.S.-based members respond to each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for. Gender analysis included an option to identify as neither male nor female, but the size of this group was too small to be analyzed separately. 

Allison Lewis from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.