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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1551903
The Glass Ceiling Perception and Female Teacher Burnout: The Mediating Role of Work-Family Conflict
Provisionally accepted- SEGi University, Kota Damansara, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Introduction: This paper aims to investigate the mediating role of work-family conflict in the relationship between the perception of the glass ceiling and female teacher burnout. The glass ceiling can create significant career barriers for women, potentially increasing work-family conflict and, in turn, leading to higher levels of burnout. Exploring these dynamics can provide insights into the underlying mechanisms contributing to female teachers' well-being and inform strategies to mitigate burnout in educational settings.The sample population comprises 200 female teachers working in higher educational institutions in China where data has been collected via a survey questionnaire, followed by SPSS and Smart PLS to analyse and test the hypotheses.Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between the perception of glass ceiling, work-family conflict and female teacher burnout, and work-family conflict mediates the relationship between the perception of glass ceiling and female teacher burnout in higher educational institutions in China.Discussion: These findings highlight how work-family conflict caused by the glass ceiling perception negatively impacts burnout among female faculty members in higher educational institutions, which are relevant to the the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3, 4, and 5 emphasizing women's well-being, high-quality education, and gender equality, it offers actionable suggestions for policymakers to reduce the incidence of female teacher burnout.
Keywords: Female Teacher Burnout (FTB), Higher education institutions (HEIs), JD-R theory, Work-family conflict (WFC), Glass Ceiling (GC), sdgs
Received: 03 Jan 2025; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 WEI and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
YUN WEI, SEGi University, Kota Damansara, 47810, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
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