The results of this study showed that there was a difference in the total scores of job burnout among coal miners of different genders, ages, years of service, education, shift system, marital status, and types of work. Men’s job burnout scores are higher than women’s, 30–45 years old have the highest scores, and the group of 11 years old higher scores, higher education lower scores, shift miners scores are higher than day shifts, married/divorced scores are higher than single. Bhagavathula AS [24] conducted a survey of nursing center staff that also showed that men, single status and advanced age are risk factors associated with job burnout. The number of men working in coal mines is higher than that of women, and men tend to get heavier and more difficult workload than women. As a result, due to work-related factors, men tend to have more disregard for the work environment and the idea of easy escape from work than women [25]. Older workers with longer working years need to face family problems such as children’s education, parental support, etc., and need to spend a certain amount of time and energy to balance family work problems. The double pressure of work and family makes older and longer-term employees prone to developing mental health diseases. On the other hand, young or newly hired employees are generally unmarried and childless, their parents are in good health, have fewer work tasks, and work pressure is lighter and easier to relieve [26]. Workers with lower academic qualifications in coal mining enterprises are generally engaged in positions with heavier manual labor, with poor work autonomy and high repetitiveness. On the other hand, those with higher academic qualifications are generally engaged in leadership or technical positions, and they can easily use the skills they have learned in their work, to get greater achievements and higher rewards. There is a difference in the burnout scores of workers who work in shifts compared to workers on regular day shifts. The risk of work stress for shift workers is higher than that of workers on regular working hours. The most direct damage to health due to working in shifts is sleep disturbance. Job burnout indirectly affects work performance [27]. People who work in shifts, especially those who work night shift, have poor sleep quality and health [28]. Long-term shift work is a high risk factor for metabolic syndrome, and is associated with increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and endocrine disease. People who work on night shifts cannot sleep normally at night like regular day shift workers. As a result of long-term shifts, the biological clocks of the workers tend to be disordered, since fatigue after work cannot be fully relieved and most of the working hours are more than 8 hours a day. Multiple factors such as long working hours and poor rest and relaxation can lead to high incidences of employee burnout [29]. The job burnout scores of unmarried coal miners is lower than that of married and divorced or widowed workers. The social roles of unmarried workers are relatively few. The married workers not only have responsibilities as employees, but they also have responsibilities towards their children, partners and parents. Consequently, these employees need to spend energy during working hours, as well as after working hours on family building, children’s education or building relationships with their parents. As a result, reasonable release and relief from work-related stress and negative emotions cannot be obtained after work. Family pressure thus becomes a risk factor for burnout, with the risk being higher in older children [30, 31].
The results of the study show that the effort-reward imbalance is associated with the age, length of service, shift system and marital status of the miners. Workers with longer working years have been in the work position for a long time, and they are more familiar and serious about the work than those who have just started. In addition, in some tasks that new employees are unable to handle, older and long-term workers make more contributions. But there are some unavoidable objective problems, such as reaction ability, learning ability, adaptability, and physical health, compared with young workers who have just joined the job, there are still some differences between the leadership and the young workers. When new learning opportunities arise, young staff are generally the first to be considered. In addition, young staff with less seniority have more opportunities for promotion, which makes older workers with more experience feel like their efforts at work do not receive the attention and rewards they deserve, thus creating a greater psychological gap [32]. Since married workers are responsible for the economic wellbeing of their families, work income becomes very important for the working class, particularly for families with children. As a result, married workers invest more energy at work to complete their tasks smoothly to ensure the stability of income. The results of correlation analysis between job burnout and effort-reward imbalance show that emotional exhaustion is positively correlated with effort and internal investment. Depersonalization is positively associated with effort and internal investment, and negatively associated with return. Personal accomplishment is positively correlated with dedication and internal investment dimensions, indicating that the two are related. The effort-reward imbalance for dedication is closely associated with increased probability of high emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment [33, 17], is the most powerful predictor of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment [34]. A study by, Colindres CV found that after adjusting the income return of low-income workers, the imbalance of employee effort-reward was reduced, and the degree and incidence of job burnout were also alleviated [35].
The effort-reward imbalance is currently considered to be a major cause of work stress, with employees who have worked under effort-reward imbalance for a long time having obvious depression and burnout tendencies [36]. Most coal miners with low academic qualifications can only earn remuneration from manual labor, and it is easy to psychologically think that labor pay is not proportional to return. Maintaining a balance between workload and remuneration may enhance recovery during leisure time, improve sleep quality, and help reduce the rate of burnout [18].
There are differences in the occupational stress scores of coal miners of different genders, years of service, education, shift system and monthly income. Men are higher than women,the score of the group of ≥ 11 years is higher than the group of 1–10 years,the higher the education level and the higher the score,higher than shift work, miners with monthly income > 7000 score the highest (P < 0.05). People with more working experience and high education tend to have higher incomes in coal mining enterprises, so they bear greater responsibilities and risks, and are more likely to have a sense of work tension. Day shift workers tend to have a larger workload than late shift workers. The results of job burnout and JCQ show that emotional exhaustion is positively associated with work demands and job skills, and negatively associated with decision-making autonomy, which are consistent with the results of a study by Persson R [37]. In addition, depersonalization is positively correlated with work demands and negatively correlated with job skills; personal accomplishment is negatively correlated with all dimensions of JCQ. The support obtained at work and the enjoyment of fair treatment have a protective effect on the occurrence of job burnout, while high work demands, low self-autonomy at work, large workload, low pay and job insecurity increase the risk of burnout [38]. Job burnout is closely associated with the working environment, the imbalance of payment and social support [39]. Increasing social support, increasing workers’ sense of participation in work, setting a reasonable amount of work demands, and giving reasonable labor remuneration are conducive to reducing work-related negative emotions. It is easier for workers with type A personality to have negative emotions in unreasonable working environments. Negative work emotions aggravate job burnout and increase the risk of job burnout. A reasonable working system and working environment can enable people with perfect personalities to complete work tasks efficiently and with high quality, but unreasonable working environment, interpersonal relationships and work tasks make people with perfect personality traits suffer from a high degree of burnout [40].
Studies have shown that the model incorporating work-family-conflict comprehensively evaluates the health status of the occupational population [41]. The results of this study found that different shift systems and types of work influence the scores of work-family-conflict. Shift miners score higher than miners on day shifts; coal miners and excavate miners scores higher compared with other types of work (P < 0.05). This is probably because tunneling is the primary task of coal mining and its high work hazard coefficient lays the foundation for other work such as coal mining. As a tunneler, the work effort is also higher than other types of work, and the smooth completion of the work is of great significance to other coal operations. The correlation results show that the scores of other dimensions of conflicts, except for the time conflict between work and family, gradually increase as the degree of job burnout increases, indicating that the greater the work-family conflict, the greater the degree of job burnout [42, 43]. This is consistent with the findings of Shujuan Yang et al. that the work-family conflict among medical staff is positively correlated with job burnout [44], and demographic factors (sex,technical title,administrative duties) account for 5.4% of job burnout. The relationship between the scores of family-work conflict and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are similar to those of other occupations, but it is opposite to the result of personal accomplishment [43];it may be that due to different occupations, doctors and other industries have higher family participation than coal miners after work. Therefore, family factors have a greater impact on the score of achievement reduction. Coal miners basically live in groups and go home less frequently. They basically participate in family activities and complete family role tasks through network communications. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization reactions are higher when there is conflict between work and family, and the emotional performance is obvious. However, the completion of work tasks and obtaining a certain salary are the main ways for coal miners to perceive personal accomplishment. Therefore, the score of achievement reduction is somewhat different from the research results of other industries.
Regression analysis results show that age, work demands, effort, work-family conflict and total scores of work-family-conflict are risk factors for job burnout, and work autonomy is a protective factor. The results show that advanced age, higher work demands, more effort, and increased work-family-conflicts increase the risk of job burnout, while higher work autonomy is associated with low risk of job burnout. Smith TD and others [45] also found that the occurrence of job burnout is closely associated with gender, age, marital status, job content, family, coping style, social support, and other factors. Therefore, coal mining enterprises should pay attention to the mental health of the elderly and high paying workers. This is because the average age of the miners is high, and most of them are married with family responsibilities of supporting the elderly and raising young children. In addition, most of the miners are men, and the couples live apart for a long time, making them prone to emotional estrangement. It is difficult to obtain family support in time, making them prone to job burnout. Considering the influence family has on work, it is necessary to take care of family members, strengthen family bonds, and improve the happiness of the families of miners. At the same time, there is need to improve the autonomy of miners’work through health lectures and other forms, educate miners to use positive ways to relieve work pressure and prevent the occurrence of job burnout, conduct regular mental health evaluations of miners, guide miners with abnormal psychology, and promote corporate benefits.