The current study integrated work-life balance and job satisfaction into a moderated mediating model to investigate the effect, mediating mechanism, and boundary condition of job stress on junior high school teachers in China in the post-epidemic era. The results supported the relationships between job stress and junior high school teachers’ mental health, revealed the indirect link between job stress and mental health through work-life balance moderating by job satisfaction. Thus, this study has theoretical and practical significance.
The results showed that job stress could significantly affect the mental health of junior high school teachers, which is in line with the previous results. Riches of studies have confirmed the significant correlation between job stress and mental health, such as depression and anxiety[63-65]. For example, the studies using the questionnaire method found that high levels of job stress are associated with poor mental health[66, 67]. Some longitudinal studies also support this conclusion. For example, Shirom et al.(2009) study on Israeli high school teachers found that teacher stress assessed at the beginning of the school year could significantly predict psychosomatic symptoms at the end of the school year[68]. In a one-year study of New York City teachers, Schonfeld(2001) found that teachers' job stress affected levels of mental health, such as self-esteem and depression[69]. This result can be explained by the Job demands-Resources Model (JD-R Model), which argues that job stress r esults from an imbalance between Job Demands and Job Resources. Because junior high school teachers have high work demands, their work resources have not increased significantly, which may lead to increased emotional exhaustion and job stress and then affect their mental health.
In addition, the results of this study indicated that when job stress influences mental health through work-life balance, the mediating effect does not exist. Throughout the mediation pathway, although job stress can significantly affect work-life balance, work-life balance cannot significantly affect teachers' mental health. The reason is that job stress has no consistent predictive relationship with teachers' mental health (the number of people with high or low work-life balance is roughly equal). The effect of job stress has a significant negative predictive effect on teachers with high levels of work-life balance while having a significant positive predictive effect on teachers with low work-life balance[42, 70]. The optimistic and adverse prediction effects of job stress on teachers' mental health in work-life balance levels cancel each other statistically. Hence, the statistical significance of the regression analysis between job stress and teachers' mental health cannot be established due to the disruption of the mediation path X→M→Y in the latter half, ultimately rendering the overall mediation effect undetectable.
However, the results of this study also found that in the moderated mediation model, job stress can affect teachers' mental health through work-life balance, and the mediating effect is moderated by job satisfaction. This result can be explained by previous studies such as job stress buffer model and resource conservation theory. Work Stress Buffer Model is a comprehensive theoretical framework to explain how individuals cope with work stress and maintain mental health[27, 71]. The model argues that when individuals face job stress, there will be a series of internal and external factors as buffers to help alleviate the negative effects of stress on mental health. These factors include but are not limited to personal traits, social support, work environment, coping strategies, etc. According to this model, when teachers are satisfied with their work, this satisfaction can be used as an important internal buffer to enhance teachers' positive mentality and emotional state, so that they have more confidence and ability to cope with various challenges at work. Therefore, satisfied teachers are more likely to find a balance between work and family and reduce mental health problems caused by job stress.
Resource conservation theory points out that individuals tend to protect and obtain resources to cope with potential loss or threat. Job satisfaction can be regarded as an important psychological resource. When junior high school teachers are satisfied, they are more likely to feel that they have enough resources to cope with various challenges in work and life, including maintaining work-family balance. This sense of abundance of resources can reduce the potential threat of job stress to teachers' mental health. Furthermore, the extension-construction theory formulated by Fredrickson (2004) suggests that job satisfaction among junior high school teacher not only broadens the scope of their attention, cognition, and actions but also spurs them to experiment with novel methods and devise fresh strategies, fostering creativity[72]. Additionally, this positive sentiment aids in the accumulation of enduring psychological and social resources, vital for navigating work-family conflicts. Notably, even when confronted with stress, high levels of job satisfaction enhance junior high school teachers’ mental well-being by optimizing their work-life balance.
There are some limitations in this study. First the first limitation of this study is that it is a cross-sectional study, so no causal relationship results can be obtained, which can be verified by longitudinal research in the future. Secondly, the measurement of variables in this study is obtained by self-report, which may have homogeneity errors. Future research should obtain data through multiple channels to increase the objectivity of the data. Finally, the participants of this study are Chinese teachers, and there may be cultural differences in the results. The job stress on junior high school teachers in other countries may be low. Future research should choose teachers from other cultural backgrounds.
Although there are some limitations in this study, the results of this study may provide some enlightenment for the intervention of teachers' mental health. First of all, as this study shows, job stress cannot directly affect teachers' mental health through work-life balance, which may be why simply improving teachers' work-life balance cannot properly balance the relationship between teachers' job stress and mental health. Job stress affects teachers' mental health through work-life balance only when teachers' job satisfaction is considered simultaneously. Future intervention strategies need to strengthen teachers' job satisfaction. In order to achieve this goal, school administrators and policy implementors should improve teachers' job satisfaction by paying attention to various needs of teachers, such as improving teachers' basic salary and performance and lowering the requirements for professional title evaluation. In addition, teachers' job satisfaction can be improved by improving their perceived organizational justice in work, such as increasing their right to participate in school decisions. In addition, this study has important theoretical significance. Since COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have been paying attention to the mental health of Junior high school teachers, such as the mechanism that affects the mental health of Junior high school teachers and the influence of Junior high school teachers' mental health on themselves and students. However, few studies have investigated the mechanism of junior high school teachers' mental health in the post-epidemic era. This study enriches the theory of teachers' stress and mental health, and reveals the intermediary mechanism and boundary regulation of this relationship. These results can enhance the influence of stress on junior high school teachers' mental health in the post-epidemic era.
6 Discussions
Through the investigation of Chinese junior high school teachers in the post-epidemic era, our study re-emphasizes the harmful effects of job stress on the mental health of junior high school teachers. First, job stress can significantly predict the mental health level of junior high school teachers, that is, job stress can directly affect the mental health level of junior high school teachers. Secondly, job stress can not affect the mental health of junior high school teachers through work-family balance. Importantly, only when work-family balance is moderated by job satisfaction can it play an medicating role in the relationship between job stress and junior high school teachers. The results are helpful to answer the relationship between job stress and mental health of junior high school teachers in the post-epidemic era, which not only enriches the related theories of junior high school teachers' mental health, but also provides a new perspective for intervention of their mental health.