Emotional exhaustion in day-care workers

Abstract

Although childcare workers have the second-worst occupation for work-related health problems and the number of professional day-care centers is growing throughout Europe, few studies have examined these workers’ emotional well-being. This study investigates the effect of position, competence, work role, role clarity, and work tasks on emotional exhaustion (EE) in a sample of almost 2500 Norwegian day-care center employees, representing 588 centers. We expected that preschool teachers would report higher levels of EE than assistants; role clarity, being confident in work role, and having a sense of co-worker support would correlate negatively with EE; and administrative tasks would correlate with higher levels of EE. We found that preschool teachers did display higher levels of EE until the work tasks were included. Competence, work role, and support were correlated negatively as expected. Parent-oriented tasks and teaching tasks were correlated with higher levels of EE.

Keywords:

• emotional exhaustion (EE)
• childcare workers
• self-perceived competence
• work role
• co-worker support
• work tasks

Acknowledgements

The paper has benefited from comments by Anne Lise Ellingsæter, Lars Guldbrandsen, Andreas Kotsadam, Anne Cecilie Larsen and Per-Arne Tufte.