The seafarer demographic delusion

The seafarer demographic delusion
January 23, 2026 https://splash247.com/the-seafarer-demographic-delusion/

Steven Jones, founder of the Seafarers Happiness Index, on shipping’s failure to nurture a new generation of crews.

The latest Seafarers Happiness Index delivers a sobering reality check, despite a modest uptick in overall scores. Seafarer responses reveal a concern that the profession is failing to evolve quickly enough to improve life for new entrants and for the hopes of accessing a more diverse demographic.

Seafarers hold no punches: the view is of a profession fossilised, designed for an ageing workforce that is either retiring rapidly or abandoning ship for shore-based roles. For young seafarers, women, and diverse talents the industry claims to value, life at sea is not just tough, it remains resolutely exclusionary.

While pride in maritime skills remains strong, the daily realities are actively driving away the very people shipping desperately needs. Seafarers grapple with a constant irony: a deep love for the calling, yet growing dissatisfaction for the day-to-day grind; hope for the career, but despair at the job.

It has long been the case that to be a seafarer you need to hold a macro level optimism that the career and benefits will deliver, while being pessimistic and pragmatic enough to get through the actual work.

The generational fault line

A decade of data, culminating in the 2025 report, exposes a widening happiness gap. Satisfaction peaks among the 45–55 “old guard”, but plummets sharply for the 16–25 age group.

In almost any other sector, this would signal an impending collapse. Without urgent improvements, shipping risks losing (or never gaining) its next generation. What was once considered “character-building” hardship is now simply viewed as unnecessary suffering. With other career options available, the brightest and best will either leave or never climb the gangway.

A cold climate for new talent

Despite a range of well meaning initiatives, there remain concerns and signs that the maritime industry has merely paid lip service to diversity and inclusion. Indeed, the 2025 data paints a troubling picture for women and non-binary seafarers:

* Female happiness scores linger at 7.09, still trailing male counterparts at 7.45.
* Non-binary seafarers report a distressing 5.5—an unmistakable signal of isolation, discrimination, and a culture resistant to change.

If we cannot make communal spaces like mess rooms, gyms, and lounges safe and welcoming, recruitment ambitions remain nothing more than PR gestures. This is the resounding message from those who want, need and deserve change.

The connectivity contradiction

Even the industry’s few gains come with caveats. Digital connectivity has improved consistently, yet it has created a new psychological burden. Seafarers find themselves “presently absent”: physically isolated but digitally tethered to domestic crises, from broken appliances to mounting bills, without being able to intervene. Families often struggle to adjust to this constant virtual presence, and this is increasing stress massively.

While shore-side management increasingly weaponises connectivity, with ever more demands and expectations placed on seafarers. As one Chief Engineer lamented, “Ship work ends, but office work begins,” turning the vessel into an extension of shore-based bureaucracy rather than a place of respite.

This becomes another layer of additional workload to be managed, a huge part of the workload crisis, which sees far too many seafarers overworked and under supported.

Shoreleave is increasingly rare, and we are wrestling with the idea of downtime alongside. While many report not having a single day off through their whole contract, cadets wrote of working 84+ hours in a week, and open admissions of fraudulent record keeping of working hours. It seems something is going very wrong indeed.

The command burden

It is not just about new entrants struggling to adapt. There is also a shattering of the myth (or perhaps expectation) that career progression equals greater satisfaction.

It is seen that happiness inversely correlates with responsibility at sea. The more you rise, the harder it seems to get. Junior engineers and engine crew report highest satisfaction, but Captains and Chief Officers rank among the lowest in the index.

The Chief Officer’s scores represent a “misery peak”, a role of maximum responsibility, trapped between overwhelming paperwork and relentless operational demands. This creates a systemic recruitment crisis.

Junior officers and cadets looking “up the ladder” see officers burdened with responsibility, drowning in paperwork and physical demands. They see Captains and Chief Engineers treated as extensions of shore departments, burdened by geopolitical risks and compliance fears.

They also see an accountability gap, with senior officers blamed for “human error” while systemic issues, fatigue, understaffing, shore pressures, are ignored. This is not a good recipe.

When the highest ranks bring the least happiness, the incentive to stay vanishes. Young, diverse talent is invited to aspire to “command misery”, and they do not fancy it. If the profession’s pinnacle resembles a burnout factory, it is no surprise the best opt for alternative careers.

A bargain broken

The industry’s survival hinges on “survivor bias”, the resilience of those who remain. Yet this strength is exploited rather than nurtured.

To attract a “new demography,” ships and systems must stop being designed for the seafarer of 1995. We face a recruitment and retention crisis because the social contract is outdated: 19th-century expectations wrapped in 21st-century technology. Until workload, shore leave, and cultural hostility toward diversity are addressed, any “uptick” in happiness is a hollow victory.

Shipping is currently optimised for a profile that is disappearing. We are failing to protect the “new demography” because we are still using an old-world metric for success: the capacity to endure. Resilience should be understood, budgeted, and used wisely as a human professional asset, not a resource for the industry to exploit until it runs dry.