(i.MOH.shun.ul LAY.bur)
n.
Jobs in which employees are required to express false or exaggerated emotions; the effort of expressing those emotions.
Example Citation:
Erickson wants to look at what she calls "emotional labor" — or what nurses face in creating or suppressing their own feelings to make others feel OK. Nurses, for example, might have to hide their feeling of frustration and act happy with patients even when they're extremely overworked. This stress can contribute to burnout.
— Cheryl Powell, "Nurses have area expert on their side," Akron Beacon Journal, April 24, 2002
Earliest Citation:
The Managed Heart [is a] perceptive study of ''emotional labor'' — jobs, like those of airline stewardesses, in which workers are trained to use emotion the way actors do, but who, according to this thoughtful sociologist, often end up unsure of what they really feel.
— "Notable Books of the Year," The New York Times, December 4, 1983
Notes:
This phrase was coined in 1983 by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in her book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. The earliest media citation I could find for this phrase occurred in a capsule review of this book (see below). Here's the first citation I could find that doesn't reference this book or Ms. Hochschild:
In the old days, says Dr Georgiades, running an airline meant making sure the same number of planes came down that went up. Now it's all about 'emotional labour.'
— Bryan Appleyard, "Spectrum: An airline forever grounded?," The Times, July 24 1986
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New words. 2013.