Cal Newport writing for The New Yorker:
These people are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether. Many are embracing career downsizing, voluntarily reducing their work hours to emphasize other aspects of life.
While it’s not exactly a precise comparison, the Bubonic Plague was a catalyst for not only one of the greatest redistributions of wealth in history but a direct path to the Renaissance. We are an amazing species.