Scholars have investigated the mechanism of job burnout from several different perspectives (Lavian, 2012; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2014; Zhong et al., 2024). In China, teachers—including preschool teachers—often experience strong effort–reward imbalance (Huang et al., 2023; Yang & You, 2017). However, few studies have investigated whether the effort–reward imbalance that teachers experience influences their job burnout (Huang et al., 2023). Interpretation of the factors that contribute to job burnout will be assisted by further study to reveal the forming mechanism of job burnout. Therefore, in this study we investigated whether effort–reward imbalance predicts preschool teachers’ job burnout. According to the effort–reward imbalance model, when individuals’ reward is not enough to compensate for their effort, the resulting effort–reward imbalance can induce stress and anxiety, subsequently impacting their mental health and leading to job burnout (J. Chen et al., 2024). On the basis of the above theories and existing empirical research, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Effort–reward imbalance will positively predict job burnout among preschool teachers.

 

Psychological empowerment refers to the synthesis of the mental state or cognition that individuals experience at their workplace in four aspects: work meaning, self-efficacy, work autonomy, and work influence (Spreitzer, 1995). Work meaning refers to the degree of fit between individuals’ job role and their beliefs, values, and behaviors; self-efficacy refers to individuals’ job-specific belief in their ability to perform work activities with skill; work autonomy refers to individuals’ sense of choice at their job; and work influence refers to the degree to which individuals influence the work or business results in their organization. Researchers have found that effort–reward imbalance reduces preschool teachers’ sense of achievement at work and further negatively affects their level of psychological empowerment (X. Zhou et al., 2019). According to the cognitive evaluation model of psychological empowerment, individuals with high (vs. low) levels of psychological empowerment gain a stronger sense of meaning at work, exhibit greater autonomy, and have a high evaluation of their work, which stimulates great enthusiasm and slows job burnout (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). X. Zhou et al. (2019) showed that psychological empowerment can help individuals stimulate their potential so that they experience the sense of achievement brought about by work while actively completing job tasks, alleviating individual job burnout. These theoretical and empirical studies further show that psychological empowerment plays an important role in individual job burnout (Livne & Rashkovits, 2018). Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Psychological empowerment will mediate the relationship between the effort–reward imbalance and job burnout of preschool teachers.

 

In China there are two types of employment status for preschool teachers: career compilation and the contract system. Of the two, teachers with career compilation are paid relatively higher salaries and are less likely to have their job terminated, so that their job is relatively stable and their social status is relatively high. Thus, they often have a higher regard for the preschool where they are employed and stronger internal identity awareness. Conversely, teachers employed under a contract system do not have strict salary or welfare standards, and their social status and social recognition are relatively low. Thus, their recognition of the organization is not as great as that of teachers with career compilation, and their internal identity awareness is weaker (Pang et al., 2021). Such a difference can easily affect the mentality of preschool teachers in their work. Specifically, preschool teachers with career compilation are more enthusiastic about their work and have greater psychological empowerment than do those employed under a contract system. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Employment status will play a moderating role in the relationship between the effort–reward imbalance and psychological empowerment of preschool teachers.

 

We constructed the research model shown in Figure 1 to reveal how effort–reward imbalance predicts preschool teachers’ job burnout from the perspective of psychological empowerment and employment status.

All participants provided informed consent and agreed to take part in the survey on a voluntary basis. The research protocol was approved by the medical ethics committee of Huzhou University. Participants did not receive any compensation for taking part in the study. We distributed our survey through the Questionnaire Star platform and collected data from 433 preschool teachers (353 women, 80 men) in Zhejiang Province, China, of whom 184 had a career compilation employment status and 249 were employed under the contract system. There were 125 participants with 0–2 years of teaching experience, 155 with 3–5 years of teaching experience, 97 with 6–10 years of teaching experience, 37 with 11–15 years of teaching experience, and 19 with 16 or more years of teaching experience.

We used the Chinese version (Zhao, 2021) of the effort and reward subscales of the Effort–Reward Imbalance Questionnaire developed by Siegrist (1996) to assess effort–reward imbalance. The effort subscale comprises six items measuring physiological burden, working time pressure, interference, work responsibility, overtime, and increasing work requirements. A sample item is “I have to take on a lot of responsibilities at work.” Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = very inconsistent to 5 = very consistent. The higher the score, the greater the individual effort. The reward scale includes 11 items measuring respect from leaders, respect from colleagues, support, fair treatment, opportunity for promotion, unexpected changes, job security, career status, expectations, reputation, and salary. A sample item is “I often have to work overtime.” The following calculation is performed: effort–reward imbalance = effort scores/(reward scores × 6/11). The higher the score, the more severe the effort–reward imbalance the participant is experiencing. This scale has been widely used in related fields (Bellingrath et al., 2008; Feuerhahn et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2023). In this study Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .64.

We measured psychological empowerment using the Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire for Preschool Teachers, which was developed by L. Chen (2018) on the basis of Spreitzer’s four-dimensional model of psychological empowerment (1995). There are 22 items in the questionnaire, comprising three dimensions: the meaning of work (six items, e.g., “I feel the recognition and trust of the director and the leader at my work, which makes me feel my work has meaning”), sense of self-efficacy (seven items, e.g., “I can successfully solve tricky problems involving children with special needs”), and autonomy (five items e.g., “I have great autonomy in the creation of the kindergarten class environment”). Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, and the scores of all items are added to obtain an average. The higher the score, the greater the psychological empowerment level of the participant. This scale has been widely used in related fields (Amer, 2023; L. Chen, 2018; Yin et al., 2024). In this study Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .95.

 

Job burnout was measured using the Chinese version (Xu, 2023) of the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Educators Survey (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). The scale is widely used and consists of 22 items in three dimensions to assess emotional exhaustion (e.g., “I am exhausted after work”), dehumanization (e.g., “I treat some children as objects without feelings”), and reduced personal accomplishment (e.g., “I feel very happy after close contact with children”). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always. The emotional exhaustion dimension and the dehumanization dimension describe teachers’ work from a negative perspective, so a positive scoring method is adopted. The reduced personal achievement items describe the work status of preschool teachers from a positive perspective, so the reverse-scoring method is adopted. The higher the score on the three dimensions, the higher the degree of burnout. This scale has been widely used in related fields (Kassandrinou et al., 2023; Zhong et al., 2024; X. Zhou et al., 2019). In this study Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .94.

We used SPSS 26.0 to analyze the correlations between the four core variables, and the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017) and bootstrapping analysis methods were used for structural equation modeling to test the mediating effect and the research hypotheses.

We first used SPSS 26.0 to perform Harman’s single-factor test to check for common method bias. The results showed that there were six factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and the amount of variance explained by the first unrotated factor was 31.34%, which is less than the critical standard of 40%, indicating there was no serious common method bias in this study (H. Zhou & Long, 2004).

We used SPSS 26.0 to calculate descriptive statistics and perform a correlation analysis of effort–reward imbalance, employment status, psychological empowerment, and job burnout. The results showed that there were significant associations among effort–reward imbalance, employment status, psychological empowerment, and job burnout. Specifically, effort–reward imbalance was negatively associated with employment status and psychological empowerment, and positively associated with job burnout. Further, psychological empowerment was positively associated with employment status and negatively associated with job burnout. Finally, there was a significant negative association between employment status and job burnout (see Table 1).

We used Model 4 in the PROCESS 4.1 macro program (Hayes, 2017) of SPSS 26.0 to test the mediating effect of psychological empowerment in the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout. The number of bootstrapped resamples was set at 5,000 to determine the significance of the mediating effect, and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. After controlling for gender and teaching experience, the results (see Table 2) showed that effort–reward imbalance significantly and negatively predicted psychological empowerment, and significantly and positively predicted job burnout.

 

When incorporating psychological empowerment as a mediating variable, after controlling for gender and teaching experience the results (see Table 2) showed that the negative predictive effect of effort–reward imbalance on psychological empowerment was still significant, and the positive predictive effect of effort–reward imbalance on job burnout was also significant. In addition, psychological empowerment significantly and negatively predicted job burnout. Thus, psychological empowerment partially mediated the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout, supporting Hypothesis 1.

We further analyzed the direct and indirect paths to examine the partial mediating effect of psychological empowerment in the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout. The results (see Table 3) suggest statistical significance in the indirect influence of effort–reward imbalance on job burnout through psychological empowerment. Moreover, even when psychological empowerment was controlled for, the direct path through which effort–reward imbalance influenced job burnout was still statistically significant. Thus, psychological empowerment played a partial mediating role in the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout (see Table 3 and Figure 2), and Hypothesis 2 was supported.

We carried out the moderated mediation model test proposed by Wen and Ye (2014) to analyze how employment status moderates the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and psychological empowerment. In this analysis each variable is standardized and processed using Model 7 of the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017). The moderating effects of employment status are shown in Table 4 and Figure 3.

 

As shown in Figure 3, for teachers employed under the contract system (M + 1 SD), effort–reward imbalance negatively predicted psychological empowerment, β = −1.50, SE = 0.25, t(431) = −5.88, p < .001. For the career-compilation group (M − 1 SD), effort–reward imbalance also negatively predicted psychological empowerment, but the effect was much weaker, β = −0.45, SE = 0.14, t(431) = −3.18, p < .01. Thus, the moderated mediation model test revealed that employment status moderated the effect of effort–reward imbalance on psychological empowerment.

 

We examined the mediating effect of psychological empowerment on effort–reward imbalance and job burnout among preschool teachers according to employment status. Specifically, for preschool teachers with career compilation, the indirect effect of reward imbalance on job burnout through psychological empowerment was 0.16, SE = 0.06, 95% confidence interval [0.06, 0.28]. For preschool teachers without career compilation (contract system), the indirect effect of reward imbalance on job burnout through psychological empowerment was 0.05, SE = 0.02, 95% confidence interval [0.01, 0.09]. For those with a career-compilation employment status, a higher level of psychological empowerment was associated with a weaker relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout. In other words, job burnout was more likely to occur when preschool teachers did not have a career-compilation employment status and when they perceived effort–reward imbalance. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was supported.

In this study we speculated that effort–reward imbalance would positively predict job burnout among preschool teachers, and that psychological empowerment and employment status would play mediating and moderating roles, respectively, in this relationship. The results show that effort–reward imbalance significantly and positively predicted job burnout, both with and without considering the mediating variable of psychological empowerment and the moderating variable of employment status. Although the influencing factors of job burnout had been investigated from several different perspectives in previous studies (Lavian, 2012; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2014; Zhong et al., 2024), few studies had investigated whether an effort–reward imbalance predicts preschool teachers’ job burnout. This research confirmed our prediction of the effect of effort–reward imbalance on preschool teachers’ job burnout, the mediating effect of psychological empowerment, and the moderating effect of employment status. The results enrich understanding of the influencing factors of job burnout and will help in developing interventions in a wider range of job burnout situations among preschool teachers.

The cognitive evaluation model of psychological empowerment suggests that the greater the psychological empowerment of individuals, the greater the sense of achievement brought about by work, thereby reducing job burnout (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). In this study we found that the more preschool teachers felt that their efforts were not sufficiently rewarded, the more likely they were to feel burnt out. Further, feeling psychologically empowered predicted decreased levels of burnout, implying that psychological empowerment played a mediating role in the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout. It can be concluded from our results that the higher the level of psychological empowerment of preschool teachers, the more they feel a sense of achievement brought by their work, thus mitigating job burnout. Therefore, in education management attention must be paid to the effort–reward imbalance of preschool teachers to prevent excessive imbalance from bringing negative effects to preschool teachers’ psychological empowerment, and then affecting their job burnout.

Our results in this study also show that the employment status of preschool teachers buffered the impact of effort–reward imbalance on their psychological empowerment and, therefore, influenced their job burnout. Specifically, although effort–reward imbalance negatively influenced preschool teachers’ psychological empowerment when they had a career compilation employment status, this employment status was a more effective buffer of this negative impact compared with a contract-system employment status. This result implies that employment status moderated the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and job burnout. Therefore, in education management settings, in aiming to reduce the negative impact of excessive effort–reward imbalance on preschool teachers’ psychological empowerment, attention should be paid to the regulating role of employment status, with attention paid especially to the vulnerability of preschool teachers without career-compilation status under the situation of effort–reward imbalance. Appropriate methods should be adopted to buffer the negative impact of effort–reward imbalance first on the psychological empowerment of preschool teachers without career-compilation status, and then on the negative impact of effort–reward imbalance on their job burnout.

There are several limitations in our study. First, we used a cross-sectional research design. Subsequent studies could explore the causal relationships among the variables using longitudinal data or experimental designs, which would be more convincing for revealing the influence of effort–reward imbalance on job burnout. Second, we found that teaching experience was significantly correlated with psychological empowerment and job burnout, which means that teaching experience may also regulate the effects of effort–reward imbalance on psychological empowerment and job burnout. Given that close to one third of participants in this study had limited teaching experience (0–2 years), this may have affected the external validity of our results. Therefore, it is necessary to further study the relationships between the variables with groups of teachers who have rich teaching experience. Third, we examined the influence of effort–reward imbalance on job burnout only in terms of the dimensions of psychological empowerment and employment status. Subsequent studies could examine the influence of other factors on the effect of effort–reward imbalance on job burnout.

We found that effort–reward imbalance significantly and positively predicted the job burnout of preschool teachers. Psychological empowerment played a mediating role in this relationship, and employment status moderated the impact of effort–reward imbalance on psychological empowerment.

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