Introduction

Parenting is a positive and fulfilling experience, but it also entails challenges and distress. Parents may not only suffer from pressures of life and work but also from the burden of raising children (Xu et al., 2018). If parents cannot cope well with these pressures, they may suffer parental burnout, which is a result of chronic exposure to parental demands that constantly exceed parents’ available resources (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018). Parental burnout includes a series of negative symptoms, such as overwhelming emotional exhaustion, emotional distancing from children, being fed up with the parental role, and comparing one’s current self with one’s previous self as a parent (Roskam et al., 2018).

Considering the negative consequence of parental burnout (e.g., escape ideation, suicidal thoughts, addictions, sleep disorders, marital conflicts, and neglect and violence behaviors towards their children)(Mikolajczak et al., 2018b, 2019), it is important to explore its antecedents and mechanisms (e.g., Lin et al., 2021; Mikolajczak et al., 2018a; Roskam et al., 2021). The Balance between Risks and Resources theory (BR2; Mikolajczak and Roskam, 2018) provides a basic theoretical framework for explaining the occurrence of parental burnout. According to the BR2, parenting demands (risk factors) are those factors that could increase the levels of parental burnout, including parental perfectionism, lack of partner support, lack of emotion management, and poor coping abilities. In contrast, parenting resources (protective factors) are those factors that could decrease the levels of parental burnout, including external support, good child-rearing practices, and positive co-parenting. Thus, to counteract parental burnout arising out of a chronic shortage of resources compared with parenting demands, enriching resources to cope with the demands of parenting may be a practical way for intervening in and preventing parental burnout.

The workplace and home are two significant components of adult life that are closely intertwined (Russo et al., 2018). Therefore, the antecedents of parental burnout may not be limited to be present only at home, but could also be present in the workplace. For instance, prior studies showed that parental burnout were correlated with work-family conflict (e.g., Wang et al., 2022), which suggested workplace can play a critical role in parental burnout.

As much as the workplace can be a demanding factor for parental burnout, it can also be a resources of protecting parents from parental burnout. For instance, work-family enrichment might be an effective protective factor against parental burnout. As a primary representation of the mutually beneficial relationship between the work and family domains, work-family enrichment emphasizes the positive spillover effect from the workplace to the family and from the family to the workplace (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). When the workplace provides better financial support (i.e., emotional path of work-family enrichment), or encourages a more positive mood (i.e., instrumental path of work-family enrichment) for an individual, the family may benefit. To illustrate, individuals could bring workplace resources to the home to cope with the stress experienced in their parenting role, thus decrease the occurrence of parental burnout.

Work-family enrichment may not only directly influence parental burnout, but may also indirectly decrease it by increasing parents’ parenting sense of competence. As work-family enrichment occurs when work resource spill over to the family, supplying parenting resources would increase parents’ parenting sense of competence. Furthermore, a parenting sense of competence is related to h positive feelings (de Haan et al., 2009) and may serve as a protective factor against parental burnout.

In addition, this study provides another mechanism whereby work-family enrichment may indirectly decrease parental burnout by decreasing parents’ parenting stress. High level work-family enrichment means that individuals could receive better support or income from their organization (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). This support or resource may also spill over to the family and help individuals to better cope with parenting stress. Meanwhile, parenting stress, which refers to the experience of distress or discomfort resulting from parenting demands (Deater-Deckard, 1998), may act as a risk factor contributing to burnout.

Overall, this study aims to contribute to the literature of the antecedent of parental burnout, especially the predictors from workplace. Specifically, based on the BR2 theory, this study examine the spillover effect of work-family enrichment on parental burnout and the mediation of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress, the basic framework was shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The basic framework of current study

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In China, mothers are of primary importance to family functioning and in ensuring food and shelter is provided for their children (Renk et al., 2003). As parental responsibilities are still centralized with the mothers in the current scenario, which may result in mothers suffering a high level of parental burnout (Roskam et al., 2022). Previous study showed that mothers reported higher levels of parental burnout than fathers (Roskam & Mikolajczak, 2020; Wang et al., 2022). In addition, with socio-economic development, an increasing number of women are joining the workforce and playing an important role in the job market. This study also examines whether the workplace can be a resource factor that reduces parental burnout vulnerability for mothers. Above all, this study focuses on sample of mothers.

Work-family enrichment and parental burnout

Work-family enrichment indicates that individuals can gain meaningful resources from investment in work (family) roles, and then improve the performance of individuals in the field of family (work) roles (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). These resources promote work-family enrichment either through an instrumental path or emotional path. Similarly, work-family enrichment also exists in two directions, namely, work-family enrichment and family-work enrichment (Qin et al., 2019).

Work-family enrichment focuses on the positive spillover effect of resources from the workplace to family domain (Gao & Zhao, 2014). As noted above, work-family enrichment could benefit the family in two main ways: by providing better financial support (i.e., emotional path) and changing individuals’ mood to be positive (i.e., instrumental path). Previous studies have shown that work-family enrichment could predict family satisfaction (Gayathri & Karthikeyan, 2016). In addition, work-family enrichment was associated with individuals’ marital satisfaction (van Steenbergen et al., 2014). Their results suggested that individuals’ interpersonal experiences in the workplace may help them communicate with their partners more effectively, increase the intimacy of their relationship, and meet their expectations of marriage, thereby improving marital satisfaction.

However, prior studies examined the effects from the workplace on the family domain mainly from a negative perspective and focused on the effects of work-family conflict (e.g., Brenning et al., 2022; Park et al., 2022). Therefore, effects from the workplace on the family should be viewed from a more balanced perspective, for example, by focusing on work-family enrichment. As work-family enrichment could provide financial or emotional support to individuals, these resources could be viewed as protective factors of parental burnout, improve family life, increase parents’ confidence, and helping parents cope effectively with parenting demands; consequently, decreasing parental burnout. Prior studies have shown that cross-domain enrichment from the work to family domain may occur when parents obtain abundant resources from their work domain, such as income, positive emotions, and self-efficacy (e.g., Chan et al., 2016). To this end, Hypothesis 1 was proposed.

Hypothesis 1

Work-family enrichment negatively associates with parental burnout.

The mediation of parenting sense of competence

Parenting sense of competence, in this study, is defined as the levels of satisfaction and self-efficacy experienced in the parenting role (Johnston & Mash, 1989). It is an effective protective factor that mediates the effects of risk factors, and buffers the negative effects of adversity for families living in disadvantaged circumstances (Makhija et al., 2019). According to the BR2 (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018), parenting sense of competence, as a positive psychological outcome of the parenting process, may serve as a parenting resource. Moreover, prior studies have shown that parenting sense of competence plays a central role in positive parenting (Jones & Prinz, 2005). For instance, parents who have a high sense of competence may display warmth, responsiveness, and affirmative involvement (Shumow & Lomax, 2002). On the other hand, a low sense of competence likely increases their frustration, distress, and irritation, contributing to the occurrence of negative parenting behavior (de Haan et al., 2009). A high sense of competence may help parents adopt positive parenting styles and enjoy their care giving experiences, which may prevent or reduce the likelihood of parental burnout. Based on this, in line with a prior study (Wang et al., in press), Hypothesis 2 was proposed.

Hypothesis 2

Parenting sense of competence negatively predicts parental burnout.

Parenting self-competence may not only directly affect parental burnout, but may also mediate the relationship between work and family enrichment. Previous research indicates that people may benefit from multiple roles, and work roles may facilitate performance in other role functions (Barnett & Hyde, 2001). As noted above, on one hand, work-family enrichment is related with a higher level of financial support from the workplace, which may directly promote parenting sense of competence. Prior studies also suggested that higher family income significantly predicts a higher sense of parenting competence (Jeon & Kim, 2007). Comparatively, individuals experiencing work-family enrichment benefit from positive resources, could generate positive experiences and emotions, and enhance their self-beliefs and self-percepts to complete tasks and accomplish goals. Therefore, work-family enrichment may positively relate with parenting sense of competence. To this end, Hypothesis 3 was proposed.

Hypothesis 3

Parenting sense of competence mediates the effect of work and family enrichment on parental burnout.

The mediation of parenting stress

Parenting stress is conceptualized as the strain experienced during child-rearing (Kochanova et al., 2022) and is a negative state of mind accompanied by anxiety, self-blame, and frustration (Abidin & Brunner, 1995). Parents may experience acute stressors in their parenting activities, such as sibling conflicts and accidental injuries of children. Parenting stress may even be an important antecedent of parental burnout. However, parenting stress may not necessarily result in parental burnout if parents have enough resources to cope with the stress. However, limited empirical research examines the relationship between parenting stress and parental burnout (e.g., Ping et al., 2022). In addition, parents may also suffer from chronic stressors, with regard to children’s health, habits, or behavioral issues. Based on the BR2 theory (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018), parents need to expand their resources to meet different parenting demands. When parents chronically lack these resources, they lose the enjoyment of parenting, become exhausted from spending time with their children, which results in attempts to escape from their children, and find their role as parents intolerable (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018). As a result, parenting stress may be a primary influencing factor of parental burnout. However, the effect of parenting stress on burnout has rarely been studied. Therefore, Hypothesis 4 was proposed.

Hypothesis 4

Parenting stress positively associates with parental burnout.

Parenting stress, as a psychological construct, is one of the more examined scholarly concerns in family research (Loyd & Abidin, 1985). However, previous studies have been limited to the family unit, and the roles of other contexts have been ignored. Few studies have suggested that job satisfaction has an effect on parenting stress (Keum & Kim, 2014) through the influence of successful problem-solving experiences and positive evaluations of self-efficacy gained at work. In other words, work-family enrichment may reduce parenting stress. With less stress, individuals may view parenting activities more positively and increase positive interactions with their children, reducing parental burnout. Thus, Hypothesis 5 was proposed.

Hypothesis 5

Parenting stress mediates the relationship between work-family enrichment and parental burnout.

The present study

The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive role of work-family enrichment on parental burnout as well as the mediation of parenting sense of competence and stress. Adolescence is a critical period in the transition from childhood to adulthood, during which both physical and psychological changes occur in the body (Das et al., 2016). Adolescents have an increasing desire to become independent but have not learned how to express their thoughts and desires to parents as yet, which may cause difficulties in parent-child communication (Fang & Fang, 2003). Parents of adolescents may suffer higher levels of parenting stress and burnout, and accordingly the present study selected this population as the research sample.

Methods

Participants

The participants were mothers of middle school students in Henan Province, China. They were invited to complete three surveys with a 6-week time interval between each measurement point. Work-family enrichment was measured in the first survey, parenting stress and parenting sense of competence were assessed in the second survey, and to control for any change, parental burnout was measured in the first and third surveys. A quick response (QR) code was sent to the middle school teacher, which was linked to the questionnaire. The teachers then sent the QR link to the students’ mothers to fill out.

All participants signed an informed consent form. They were informed that the purpose of the current survey was to determine family relationships, and participation was voluntary. Furthermore, there would be no repercussions if they did not participate in the survey. Participants were told they could stop participation at any time. The survey has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the academic institution associated with the authors.

Mothers were asked to provide the last four digits of their phone numbers, which were used to match the three sets of questionnaire data. Across the three rounds of data collection, 916, 886, and 950 mothers completed the survey. However, some participants did not report the same phone number across the three rounds of data collection, and 15 participants did not answer all the questions in the third-round survey, which caused a loss of data. Combined with data collected at Time 1 and Time 2, there were 618 participants matched. Combined with all three times data, 507 mothers’ questionnaires were matched in total. The attrition rate was 44.8% from Time 1 to 3. The main reasons for sample attrition were the presence of missing data and inconsistent coding across the three times points. The mean age of the participants was 42.18 years (Standard deviation (SD) = 4.57), 310 had a high school education or lower, and 197 had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

G*power was used to calculate the necessary sample size required for the hypothesized model. The effect size f2 was set at 0.05, the significance level (α) was set at 0.05, the power was set at 0.95, and the number of the total predictors was set as 4. The results showed that 377 participants were enough to validate the hypotheses of this study, which means that the 507 participants included in our study were adequate for data analysis.

Measures

Parental burnout

Parental burnout was measured using the Chinese short version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (Wang et al., 2021). The measure consists of seven items, with an example being “I feel as though I’ve lost my direction as a mom.” Each item is rated on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7 where 1 means completely inconsistent and 7 means completely consistent, with a higher score representing higher burnout. In this study, the Cronbach’s α was 0.91 at Time 1 and 0.92 at Time 3.

Work-family enrichment

The subscale of the Chinese version of the Work-family Enrichment Scale was used (Carlson et al., 2006; Ma et al., 2014). The original questionnaire measures two factors: work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment, and the former was adopted in the current study. The measure consists of four items, such as “My involvement in my work makes me feel happy and this helps me be a better family member.” Each item is rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 where 1 means do not agree at all and 5 means fully agree, with a higher score representing greater enrichment. Construct validity of the scale was determined for a Chinese sample. In this study, the Cronbach’s α was 0.81.

Parenting sense of competence

Parenting sense of competence was measured by the Chinese version of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (Gibaud-Wallston & Wandersmann, 1978; Peng et al., 2012). The scale consists of 12 items measuring two dimensions: satisfaction and efficacy. An example of this is, “Being a parent is manageable, and any problems are easily solved.” Each item is rated on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 where 1 means strongly disagree and 4 means strongly agree, with a higher score representing greater sense of competence. In this study, the Cronbach’s α was 0.82.

Parenting stress

Parenting stress was measured by the Chinese version of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (Abidin & Brunner, 1995; Ren, 1995), consisting of 36 items. An example item is, “Since I have had this child, I have been unable to do other new things.” Each item is rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 where 1 means strongly disagree and 5 means strongly agree, with a higher score representing higher stress levels. In the current study, the Cronbach’s α was 0.95.

Demographic variables

Mothers were asked to report their demographic information, including age, education level, and adolescent children’s age and gender.

Data analysis

The data were analyzed in detail using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY) with PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013). First, common method bias was examined, and missing data analysis was conducted. Second, descriptive statistics and a correlation matrix were calculated. Third, the hypothesized mediation model was examined using PROCESS 4.0.

Results

Missing data analysis

Since participants did not complete all three surveys. The Welch’s test was conducted to explore whether the missing data could bias our results by comparing participants who completed the questionnaires with those who dropped out. The result indicated that there were no significant differences between mothers’ education level (t = − 0.75, df = 877.84, p = .45), monthly income level (t = 1.56, df = 906.52, p = .12), adolescents’ gender (t = -1.10, df = 871.03, p = .27), work-family enrichment (t = -0.33, df = 879.76, p = .74), parenting sense of competence (t = 0.32, df = 188.97, p = .75), parenting stress (t = -1.11, df = 178.16, p = .27), and parental burnout (t = − 0.27, df = 895.37, p = .79). These above results suggested that removing incomplete questionnaires did not bias the results.

Common method bias

Since all data were collected from the same source—the common method bias— variance coming from the measurement method rather than the constructs of the measures might have influenced the results of the current study. Common method variance was examined by controlling for the effects of the unmeasured latent methods factor (Podsakoff et al., 2003) before testing the hypotheses. Each item was allowed to load on its respective construct (i.e., work-family enrichment, parenting stress, parenting sense of competence, and parental burnout). At the same time, the common method variance factor was included with all items, with these paths then constrained to be equal. The latent factor was not correlated with the other factors. The results showed that the variance explained by the latent method factor was 1.7%, which is lower than the median of 25% reported in a previous study (Williams et al., 1989).

Considering that data collected at the same time may produce a common method bias, the common method variance within the different phases were also examined. Specifically, we calculated the common method variance (CMV) shared by parenting stress and parenting sense of competence (collected at Time 2), and by work-family enrichment and parental burnout (collected at Time 1) separately. The results showed that the CMV of parenting stress and parenting sense of competence was 1.69%, and of work-family enrichment and parental burnout was 9.00%. Therefore, the effect of the common method bias on the current study was very limited.

Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis

The descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations for all variables are shown in Table 1. Parental burnout (measured at Time 3) was negatively correlated with work-family enrichment (r = − .20, p < .01) and parenting sense of competence (r = − .49, p < .01), but positively correlated with parenting stress (r = .52, p < .01), thus providing preliminary support for hypotheses 1, 2, and 4. In addition, work-family enrichment was positively correlated with parenting sense of competence (r = .34, p < .01) and negatively correlated with parenting stress (r = − .27, p < .01).

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations between all variables
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Hypothesis testing

All hypotheses were tested using the conditional process analysis program, PROCESS, which computes ordinary least square regressions to test for direct and indirect effects (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS Model 4 was used to estimate the regression coefficients, and follow-up bootstrap analyses with 5,000 bootstrap samples employed to estimate 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals for specific and total indirect effects. The results are shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Model of the relationships between the study constructs. Notes: **p < .01, ***p < .001. The path coefficients are standardized

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As shown in Fig. 2, after controlling for the effect of parental burnout at Time 1, work-family enrichment was positively related to parenting sense of competence (β = 0.26, p < .001), which in turn was negatively related to parental burnout at Time 3 (β= − 0.22, p < .001). Meanwhile, work-family enrichment was negatively related to parenting stress (β= − 0.17, p < .001), which was positively related to parental burnout at Time 3 (β = 0.20, p < .001). The indirect effects of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress were significant (indirect effect = − 0.05, SE = 0.02, 95%CI [-0.08, − 0.02]; indirect effect = − 0.03, SE = 0.01, 95%CI [-0.06, − 0.01]). Overall, parenting sense of competence and parenting stress had a mediating role on the relationship between work-family enrichment and parental burnout (indirect effect = − 0.08, SE = 0.02, 95%CI [-0.12, − 0.05]), supporting Hypothesis 3 and Hypothesis 5.

Supplemental analyses

Because the correlation coefficient between parental sense of competence and parenting stress was much higher than expected, the result may have been biased. Supplemental analyses were conducted to examine the collinearity of the two factors. Specifically, a series of regression analyses were conducted, and the results were shown in Table 2.

The results showed that work-family enrichment was negatively associated with parental burnout (β = − 0.20, p < .001; Model 1). When parental sense of competence was entered into the model, the association between work-family enrichment and parental burnout became insignificant (β = − 0.04, n.s.). The association between parental sense of competence and parental burnout was significant (β = − 0.48, p < .001; Model 2). However, when parenting stress was entered into the model, the association between work-family enrichment and parental burnout became insignificant (β = − 0.07, n.s.). The association between parenting stress and parental burnout was significant (β = 0.50, p < .001; Model 3). But when parental sense of competence and parenting stress were entered into the model simultaneously, the association between work-family enrichment and parental burnout became insignificant (β= − 0.03, n.s.). The associations between parental sense of competence and parental burnout (β = − 0.25, p < .001), and between parenting stress and parental burnout (β = 0.36, p < .001; Model 4) were significant. In addition, all the VIF in Model 4 were under 3, suggesting the collinearity was not serious in the present study.

Table 2 Results of multi-variable regression (with parental burnout as the dependent variable)
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Discussion

By studying a sample of mothers, the present research focused on the effects and underlying mechanism of work-family enrichment on parental burnout, specifically the mediation of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress were examined. The results generally supported the hypotheses.

Work-family enrichment and parental burnout

Our results showed work-family enrichment was negatively associated with parental burnout, which provided further evidence to support the spillover effect (Crouter, 1984) from workplace to family domain. Prior studies showed that parental burnout is positively correlated with job burnout (Wang et al., 2021, 2022; Brenning et al., 2022; Park et al., 2022). In addition, results of Ju’s (2020) study showed that work-family conflict positively predicted parental burnout in mothers. In line with prior studies, the present study also showed work-family enrichment was negatively associated with parental burnout over time. If burned out mothers can obtain resources through work-family enrichment and apply them to parenting (e.g., better support or higher income from their company could enable their children to go to a better school, thereby decreasing the risk of parenting stress and burnout), they can more effectively deal with parenting challenges. The present study provided a positive perspective of work-family interface, that workplace can not only serve as risk factor for mothers, but also could be viewed as a resources of protecting mothers from parental burnout. Future research needs to examine whether such effects were applicable to father samples.

A previous study showed that parental burnout cannot provide incremental validity over job burnout in the prediction of work outcomes, and job burnout only showed associations with work outcomes (Evans et al., 2022), their work did not show a spillover effect between different domains. However, some prior studies showed the different types of burnouts were correlated with each other, for instance, job burnout to couple burnout (Pines et al., 2011), and parental burnout to job burnout (Wang et al., 2022). A possible explanation is that even the job burnout cannot predict family outcome directly, it may affect family outcome through parental burnout indirectly. In other words, resources may spillover from the from workplace to family (or family domain to the workplace) and burnout is the important mediator in this spillover effect. Future research could further explore the assumption that job burnout could mediate the relation between parental burnout and work outcomes, and whether parental burnout could mediate the relation between job burnout and work outcomes.

Parenting sense of competence, parenting stress, and parental burnout

Our results indicate that both parenting sense of competence and parenting stress had significant predictive effects on parental burnout. First, when parents have a higher parenting sense of competence, they can apply positive parenting strategies and increase their interactions with their children with less effort (Jones & Prinz, 2005). Parenting sense of competence as a protective factor may thus be assumed to compensate for the damage caused by risk factors of parental burnout. Second, the current study suggests that parenting stress is a risk factor for burnout. Specifically, parents may suffer exhaustion when they experience overwhelming parenting stress for an extended period of time. This exhaustion progressively leads them to distance themselves from their children and no longer take pleasure in parenting (Mikolajczak et al., 2019). Therefore, parenting stress has a negative predictive effect on parental burnout. These results provided further support to the BR2 theory (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018).

The mediations of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress

The mediations of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress were also significant in the present study. Previous research has indicated that the resources depleted by an individual in one domain need to be replenished by obtaining resources from other domains (Liao et al., 2022). When mothers have more resources at work, it helps them overcome difficulties in the family domain (Tang et al., 2007). On the one hand, the successful experiences that mothers have at work help them increase their sense of efficacy and competency, and solve problems they encounter while parenting, thereby improving parenting sense of competence, which acts as a protective factor against burnout.

Parental burnout is caused by chronic parenting stress (Roskam et al., 2018). When mothers receive adequate financial compensation for their work, they may hire others to take care of the household and help with childcare, which reduces their burden of raising children, thereby reducing parenting stress. This shows that parenting stress is affected by work-family enrichment and that a reduction of parenting stress reduces parental burnout. Thus, it is important for parents to make good use of resources in the work field, recognize the impact of parenting sense of competence and stress on themselves, and try to regulate negative emotions that come up in the parenting process to reduce the level of burnout.

Theoretical and practical implications

First, this study has shown that work-family enrichment may indirectly affect parental burnout through parenting sense of competence and parenting stress and supports the cross-domain spillover effects (Crouter, 1984) in the work and family relationship literature. There is an interaction between the two contexts of work and family, in which parents who complete their work assignments may obtain benefits to help them fulfil their parenting responsibilities and reduce the level of parental burnout. Second, according to the BR2 model, additional resources, such as parents’ self-empathy, emotional intelligence, setting aside time for leisure, emotional or practical support from grandparents and spouses, positive co-parenting, and a warm family environment, can protect parents from burnout. The results of this study showed that these resources are not limited to the family domain but could also be from the work domain; for instance, resources from the workplace could act as a buffer against parental burnout. Third, this study provided a preliminary mechanism for the effects of workplace resources on parental burnout. The BR2 model indicates that a reduction in risk factors and an increase in protective factors could significantly reduce the rise of parental burnout. The results of the current study showed that resources from the workplace can reduce risk factors and strengthen protective factors, thus improving the balance between risk and resources.

The results of our study are also beneficial for the prevention and management of parental burnout. From the perspective of organizations, they should fully recognize their importance in the support of employees’ families by promoting family-friendly policies, supporting employees’ work-family balance and enrichment, and helping employees solve various problems in their families.

Limitations and future directions

This study examined the spillover effect of work-family enrichment on parental burnout in a sample of mothers; however, some limitations should be noted. First, the attrition rate was relatively high. Due to the pandemic, data were collected online and participants were required to fill out the questionnaire three times, which resulted in ineffective control of participation. Future studies could adopt methods such as offline data receipts to reduce the attrition rate. Second, the age distribution of the mothers in this study was narrow, and only mothers of middle school students were selected for the survey. Therefore, the results obtained may not be generalizable to other demographics. Future studies should choose samples with a larger age range to enhance the generalizability of the results. Third, considering the participation rates would decrease when collecting data at different time points, to reduce participant burden and increase recovery rates, we only controlled for parental burnout at Time 1 and did not control other variables. Therefore, the conclusions of this study should be interpreted with caution. Further studies should conduct their research in a more rigorous way and collect all variables at each time point for better control. Fourth, there was an unexpected high correlation between Time 2 parenting stress and Time 2 parenting sense of competence. Therefore, the results should be interpreted with caution. Even though the common method variance of the data were examined and the results supported the fact that the high correlation may not have been caused by common method variance, it is unclear why the correlation coefficient between the two variables was so high. To determine whether it was due to the variables being conceptually highly relevant or because of the characteristics of this data set, further exploration is needed in the future. Thus, future research needs to further investigate the relationship between these two variables and adopt a more rigorous research design.

Conclusions

Our study first introduced work-family enrichment into the parenting domain and explored the effect of work-family enrichment on parental burnout and the mediation of parenting sense of competence and parenting stress between work-family enrichment and parental burnout. The results showed that work-family enrichment could influence parental burnout indirectly through parenting sense of competence and parenting stress. Our findings provide insights into where to direct efforts toward enriching women’s parenting resources and reducing mothers’ burnout.