Who is burning out by 30?

My dearest incurable humanist,

A couple of nights ago, I was lying in bed doomscrolling on TikTok (don’t judge, you know you do this too), when I stopped to listen to a podcast clip, where they asked “who is most likely to burn out by the time they turn thirty?” The guest replied: “daughters of immigrants.” So I commented: “Yes! But not only daughters of immigrants, also immigrants” and then went to sleep. By morning my comment had hundreds of likes which made me think more and more about the question, leading me into an internet rabbit hole searching for the data behind this. I dug through academic databases, read about immigrant mental health, eldest‑daughter syndrome, and burnout. While I couldn’t find a study supporting the TikTok claim, I did find interesting articles about how immigrants (especially women) carry higher rates of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress than non‑immigrants.

One common misconception about migration is that it only affects people who arrive with nothing. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Some immigrants come with degrees from good universities or even study here in top schools, are fluent in English, have savings, and a professional network. From the outside it might look like the immigration success story, but migration still challenged them. You see, when a country falls apart, people leave because they’ve stopped having a future. It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have when you’re introducing yourself for the hundredth time, or lying awake because the people you left are still living the crisis you escaped. Burnout comes from holding too much for too long with no light at the end of the tunnel to let you know you will be alright.

The World Health Organization considers migration has a mental health risk at every stage. There’s the trauma and instability that forces you to leave, for some, the risk in transit, and the risk that keeps accumulating long after you’ve technically arrived and are supposed to be “fine”. For first-generation immigrants, this becomes chronic fatigue, like a low hum of never quite catching up no matter how much you’ve actually accomplished.

I am one of nearly eight million Venezuelas who have left since 2014, fleeing a dictatorship. In a country of 28 million, that’s more than one in four people from every background.

Researchers coined the term migratory grief to describe the ongoing loss that comes with this process. A 2024 study of immigrant mental health professionals in the United States found that high migratory grief combined with low perceived social support strongly predicted burnout. These were therapists who had migrated and spent their days holding other people’s mental health together. But I don’t think you need to be a therapist for this to apply to you.

Moreover, The Migration Policy Institute has estimated that college-educated immigrants working below their skill level cost the U.S. economy thirty-nine billion dollars a year. In other words, the doctor driving for Uber, the lawyer as an assistant. This costs status, identity, and the sense of competence you spent your whole life building.

So if daughters of immigrants are burned out by thirty, it’s probably because their parents were too, and they inherited it. Maybe our generation’s work is to stop passing this on. To tend to our own burnout so our children don’t have to.

Until next week!