Abstract
In China, female employees face the double shackles of pressure to have children and pressure to develop their careers. The influence of fertility on women’s work activities is increasingly significant. However, research on the impact of fertility anxiety on work engagement has been neglected. This study proposes a research model that includes fertility anxiety, emotional exhaustion, work engagement, and the ability and willingness to demonstrate family flexibility based on conservation of resources theory and work/family border theory. A structural equation model and bootstrap method were used to analyze the theory models with data collected from 496 survey samples. The findings demonstrate that fertility anxiety increases emotional exhaustion and decreases work engagement. Emotional exhaustion partially mediates the effect of fertility anxiety on work engagement. Family flexibility-ability and family flexibility-willingness moderate the effect of emotional exhaustion on work engagement. This research provides valuable insights and empirical evidence to improve the work engagement of female employees of childbearing age from a multidimensional perspective.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This study was supported by the the Social Science Planning Research Project of Shandong Province (23CFNJ24).
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Zhang, Xx., Hao, Xl. How does fertility pressure affect Chinese working women? Negative effects of fertility anxiety on women’s work engagement. Curr Psychol 43, 18389–18403 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05661-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05661-x