The Joys and Sorrows of Parenting: Parental Burnout and Parental Involvement in Chinese and German Parents From a Demands-Resources Perspective

Abstract

Parents are under pressure to perform well in both professional and family life while simultaneously remaining involved in their children’s development. This pressure is reflected by the prevalence of parental burnout, which is of concern in numerous societies. Drawing upon the demands-resources framework, we investigated parental burnout, parental involvement, and their antecedents (i.e., gender, socioeconomic status, single parenthood, the number of schoolchildren, in-group collectivism, self-esteem, and parent–teacher collaboration) in a cross-cultural setting. Analyses were based on 856 Chinese and 421 German parents’ self-reports. The results of latent mean comparisons showed that Chinese parents reported more parental burnout symptoms, less parental involvement, lower global self-esteem, and higher quality of parent–teacher collaboration in comparison with German parents. Multigroup structural equation models revealed that the relationships between parental burnout, parental involvement, and presumed factors of influence were comparable between the two cultural groups. Furthermore, self-esteem and parent–teacher collaboration can be seen as factors that protect against parental burnout and should encourage parents to get involved in their children’s education. This study provides evidence of the cross-cultural validity of the demands-resources framework and novel insights into the roles of resilience and engagement as a protective function of parenting resources.