Abstract
Online education has become a vital weapon to fight against the COVID-19 epidemic in the world. In the home-based online education environment, female pre-school teachers are expected to balance the dual roles of teacher and mother at the same time, which may trigger the work-family conflict. Although previous studies analyzed individual stressors, work-family conflict and its outcomes, there is little research on pre-school teachers' work and parenting experience during major public health emergencies. The current study examined the associations among work overload, parenting stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction during the COVID-19. Seven hundred eighteen female pre-school teachers with children who worked online at home participated in the study. Female pre-school teachers reported that the COVID-19 has increased work overload and parenting stress. Moreover, work overload was negatively associated with job satisfaction via its positive association with work-to-family conflict. Parenting stress was negatively associated with job satisfaction via both family-to-work conflict and work-to-family conflict. The study contributes to a better understanding of the association among female pre-school teachers' work overload, parenting stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction. Our findings highlighted potential avenues for interventions aimed at balancing female pre-school teachers' work and family and improving their job satisfaction during the COVID-19.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis and quickly expanded to the economic, social life, and education sector of the global world (Thu et al, 2020)
To summarize, during the COVID-19 epidemic sweeping the world, this study aimed to examine pre-school teachers’ work and parenting experiences, and the associations among work overload, parenting stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction in a sample of Chinese female pre-school teachers with young children
Pre-school teachers in the current study reported that COVID-19 has increased work overload and parenting stress
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis and quickly expanded to the economic, social life, and education sector of the global world (Thu et al, 2020). China closed down pre-schools, schools, and universities, and the Ministry of Education carried out the initiative of “suspension of classes without suspension” during the COVID-19 (Ministry of Education, 2020) This initiative means that children and teachers are forced to stay at home, changing the way they learn and teach. When the educational place is transferred to the home, work and family processes are in the same space, which blurs the boundary between the work and family field, and leads to work-family conflict more . A large number of studies have shown that female teachers face the challenge of work-family conflict (Noor and Zainuddin, 2011; Erdamar and Demirel, 2014)
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