Every year, students step out of academics with big dreams of getting highly paid and reputed jobs, but not all find jobs. Yet, job opportunity scarcity hits everywhere. They are moving to cities in search of survival jobs. Are cities really welcoming these graduates? How do they lead lives while chasing careers? During the pandemic, unemployment rose, and technology advanced. Human resources were cut, and mass layoffs happened drastically (Ministry of Finance, 2026). Where should job seekers go, and how can employees sustain their jobs? It is an urgent call to raise questions about the pursuit of careers across cities.
Career in cities
Living in a fast-paced, competitive, career-driven life, the work life in urban areas is intense. Graduates from villages and small towns rush toward cities to find careers. They think cities are the hope for a better lifestyle and economic growth. Once they enter the cities to chase their careers, it feels like survival mode. It is really tough to run their lives. The struggle starts with finding a job and the fear of job sustainability. After the pandemic, career growth and economic growth of employees were deprived. Advancement of technology is also the reason for stress, social disconnection, identity crisis, and emotional exhaustion(Wheebox, 2025).
Read More: The Psychology behind Job Insecurity
Psychological aspects of careers in cities
The job commuters are rail and metro passengers in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. They travel many kilometres and rush to work. Working in cities is not the easiest. It’s like living in boiling water. While chasing their career, mass layoffs, and living rushed lifestyles in cities cause mental disturbance and physical issues. Issues of mental health are a bigger thing. Research says unemployment among higher-educated migrant youth is associated with psychological issues of anxiety, depression and stress (Biswas, Das, and Sheikh, 2024). Here, quoting certain common issues and coping strategies to build the well-being of employees and career-chasing aspirants.
1. Emotional strain of social disconnection
Long commutes and long working hours in urban life feel disconnected. People are scattered but live together. They lose social connections. How does it affect individuals?
People are not connected with people. They face psychological and physical issues. Regular working hours suck away personal space with families, friends, and communities. It creates stress and loneliness (Lok Sabha, 2025).
They lose trusted relationships, which makes them socially distracted. Career-chasing professionals are only commuters, not really living their lives. They do hangouts and gatherings, but it all feels designed, not natural. They feel emotional exhaustion in the workplace and in urban life. Emotional energy is drained by a lack of interaction with colleagues.
2. Identity crisis
To take the example from Homebound, a 2025 Movie by Neeraj Ghaywan, depicts the struggle of youngsters chasing their career, rushing to cities, facing realities of discrimination, and losing their identity. Metropolitan cities are highly welcoming to people from different places, where they belong to different cultures and communities, yet they are surviving in the cities but not living. Where they lost their culture and ritual to follow. They adopt the new culture where they lose their own identity. At a certain point, they feel exhausted from finding their original identity. Cities are not only spaces giving jobs. It is a place of identity search. Here, they search for their job and career role makes identity crisis.
Read More: The Psychology of Feeling Behind in Your 20s: Social Comparison, Identity Crisis & Mental Health
3. Lack of skill
Job seekers often face a lack of skills related to the job. During academics, Students give importance to studies rather than developing skills. This leads to loss of job opportunities. There is a bridging gap between the job seekers and hiring companies. Even working professional not upgrading their skills. Job seekers from small towns and villages struggle with communication skills. It creates constant fear and inferiority in the city lifestyle.
4. Cost of Living and Work-Life Balance
The cost of living in metropolitan Cities such as Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad is high. Transportation, food and rent do not match the salary of an individual person. Work-life culture cannot balance with city life.
Read More: The Essential Guide to Achieving Work-Life Balance
5. Emotional stress
Job commuters are not only migrating from their native but also emotionally migrating. They migrated stress, disconnection, and identity instability remind, career-oriented people should not come at the expense of emotional well- being. Where they challenges taken from a psychological perspective? Constant emotional stress burns out the energy for chasing the uncertain job and life. Emotional stress includes the lack of salary to maintain the lifestyle in metropolitan cities.
Read More: Is Your Job Making You Sick? The Hidden Dangers of Overworking
6. Survival mode in metropolitan cities
New job commuters hope for the survival of cities; cities are good for growth, but they drain the people. Insecure job, high competition, and cost of living lead to pressure and constant anxiety. Which makes survival mode.
Coping Strategies
Coping strategies are not just one-handed; hands together to cope with this psychological insight to help career success with social connections, organisational support, and personal resilience. These coping strategies are to help industries grow and individuals.
- Organisational support: Organisations and government entities play a major role in supporting the coping strategies.
- Work policies and codes for employees: Work polices and employee benefit codes have been implemented by the central government to modernise labour regulations (Lok Sabha, 2024; Lok Sabha, 2025; Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2025). The four labour codes, 2025, Right to Disconnect Bill,2025 and Paid Menstrual Benefits Bill, 2024.
- Mental Health Support: Recently, the budget 2026, the part has spoken for mental health and mental health building institutions. Counselling services, stress-management workshops, and peer support groups help employees cope with emotional strain (Ministry of Finance, 2026).
- Recognition of Emotional Labour: Addressing and acknowledging that relocation and adaptation are forms of invisible labour. The organisation supports ensuring the accommodation and is possible to provide free of these employees.
- Career Sustainability Programs: Offer training, mentorship, and job security measures to reduce the fear of layoffs and instability.
Read More: 15 Effective Stress Management Strategies for a Healthier Life
Personal Coping Strategies
- Time Management & Boundaries: To protect personal time and personal space. fixed working hours and set boundaries of work and personal space. (Lok Sabha, 2025) Eg, No work calls after office hours, which creates a productive and organised personal and professional space
- Mindful Practices: Meditation, journaling, or yoga can reduce stress and provide emotional grounding. These practices help commuters and professionals process the turbulence of urban life.
- Community Building: Seek out networks, professional groups, cultural associations, or local clubs that provide belonging. Even small circles of trust can counteract loneliness.
- Digital Connection with Roots: Use technology to maintain ties with family and friends in hometowns. Regular calls or shared online activities sustain emotional bonds despite distance.
- Re-framing Mobility: Instead of viewing relocation as a loss, frame it as growth. This mindset shift reduces emotional fatigue and fosters resilience.
Read More: 5 Game-Changing Mindset Shifts for Success
Societal Coping Strategies
- Urban Planning for Well-Being: Cities can design better public spaces, reduce commute times, and create affordable housing to ease stress.
- Policy Interventions: Governments can invest in regional job creation, reducing the need for mass migration to metropolitan hubs.
- Cultural Preservation: Encouraging cultural festivals, community centres, and local traditions in cities helps migrants retain identity and belonging.
Conclusion
To address the psychological cost of career chasing, most of the cities are in survival mode. Chasing careers over cities, facing many problems. To ensure job security, employees’ mental health, and organisational growth. Stress, disconnection, identity crisis, and burnout shadow the promise of professional advancement.
Cities must be re-imagined not only as economic hubs but as spaces where people can live fully, with dignity, connection, and identity intact. True success should not demand perpetual uprooting but should allow individuals to thrive without sacrificing emotional foundations.
References +
Lok Sabha. (2025). The Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025 (Bill No. 51 of 2025). Government of India.
Ministry of Labour & Employment. (2025). The Four Labour Codes. Government of India.
Lok Sabha. (2024). Paid Menstrual Benefits Bill, 2024. Government of India.
Wheebox. (2025). India Skills Report 20255. Wheebox Talent Solutions.
Ministry of Finance. (2026). Union Budget 2026. Government of India.
Ghaywan, N. (Director). (2025). Homebound [Film]. Dharma Productions.
Peer, B. (2020, May 16). A Friendship, a Pandemic and a Death Beside the Highway. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/opinion/india-coronavirus-migrant-workers.html (nytimes.com in Bing)
Biswas, M. M., Das, K. C., & Sheikh, I. (2024). Psychological implications of unemployment among highly educated migrant youth in Kolkata City, India. Scientific Reports, 14(1), Article 60958. (doi.org in Bing)
