second shift
/ˈsɛkənd ʃɪft/
CommonThe unpaid domestic work someone does after their paid job ends.
The phrase comes from a specific 1989 book but is now used casually in online relationship discourse. Often comes up in discussions about why women are disproportionately burned out.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | she works a full day and comes home to a second shift and he says he's tired from work too | Both partners work, but only one does the domestic labor afterward, and the other does not acknowledge it. | reddit, 2024 |
| 02 | i have a full time job and a full time second shift and neither of them pay equally | The speaker works two effective jobs, one paid and one not, and resents the imbalance. | x, 2023 |
| 03 | women's burnout epidemic makes a lot more sense when you look at who's doing the second shift | High rates of burnout among women connect directly to unpaid domestic work on top of paid employment. | tiktok, 2024 |
| 04 | his second shift is picking up dinner on the way home. her second shift is feeding the kids, bath time, homework, laundry, dishes, and lunches for tomorrow | The comparison shows how completely different each partner's contribution is. | reddit, 2023 |
Use it when
- Describing how someone works a full day and then does most of the household labor at home.
- Explaining the disparity in total workload between partners when both work full-time.
- Connecting domestic burnout to structural inequality.
Do not use it when
- You mean an evening work shift at a job.
- The extra work is a one-time event, not a recurring pattern.
Origin and context
The term comes from sociologist Arlie Hochschild's 1989 book 'The Second Shift', which documented how employed women came home to a second unpaid shift of domestic work. The phrase was later adopted into everyday online discourse.
- First seen
- 1989
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/second-shiftUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0