Abstract
Over the span of nearly 10 years, the social work labor force grew from 0.2 million to approximately 1.2 million in China. Despite these increases, studies have shown social workers in China are also experiencing equally high burnout rates. For this analysis, we collected data from 537 social workers based in Guangzhou, China. We used the job demands and resources (JD-R) theory, to examine the relations between JD-R and burnout and whether mindfulness practice (MP) could reduce any such burnout. Our results suggest JD-R affects social workers’ burnout through both health and motivation impairment. High job demands (JD) were linked to high burnout while high job resources (JR) were linked to a reduction in burnout. Formal (Beta = −0.08) and informal (Beta = −0.19) MP were associated with low burnout amongst social workers. The significant interaction between JD and MP also suggests that MP can reduce burnout for social workers with high JD. The findings call for using MP to be used to shield social workers from the effects of increasing JD and to prevent an increase of burnout amongst Chinese social workers.
Highlights
Since the 1980s, China’s economy has been rapidly developing, and so has the need for social workers to address rising social welfare needs
Considering Chinese social workers’ workload, we focused on three aspects of job demands (JD): pace and amount of workload, emotional workload, and changes in the tasks
The health-impairment process was indicated by the positive relationship between JD and burnout, whereas the motivation process was shown by negative association between job resources (JR) and burnout
Summary
In tandem to rising social work academic institutions, the national Chinese social work labor force drastically increased from 0.2 million in 2010, to 1.2 million in 2018 (Li et al, 2012; Chan et al, 2020). These statistics highlight just how quickly the field of social work has expanded throughout China, in a relatively short period of time. The future of social work in China, has become threatened by high burnout and turnover rates amongst social workers across the country (Lin and Lan, 2014; Xu et al, 2016; Jiang et al, 2019; Su et al, 2020; Tang and Li, 2021)
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