Investigating Macao migrant workers’ job burnout in food and beverage industry: A perceived stigma perspective

Migrant workers comprise half of the workforce in Macao, and stigmatization is a typical characteristic of the group. Previous studies have researched the impact of stigmatization on related behaviors such feeling shame to seek help and perceiving resistance and vulnerability as stigmatized identities, but few have focused on the workplace behavior of stigmatized employees. We surveyed 312 mainland migrant workers in Macao using self-administered questionnaires and used structural equation models and regression to analyze data. Findings illustrated that perceived stigma leads to job burnout (β1=0.24, p<0.001) whereas role stress acts as a mediating variable (β2=0.19, p<0.001) in the process. In addition, self-efficacy and organizational support buffer role stress mediating effect. The mediated moderator analysis found that when migrant workers are at a high-level self-efficacy or perceive high-level organization support, the mediation effect of role stress has been reduced to insignificant. In contrast, when migrant workers perceive middle or low-level self-efficacy and organization support perceptions, role stress has been in effect in transmitting stigmatization perception to job burnout. Results are aligned with the conservation of resources theory and job-demand theory. This study extends stigmatization study from sociology to the organization behavior studies. It is contended that Macao government, society, and employers need to offer sufficient support to migrant workers to buffer the effects of stigmatization, reduce their job burnout, and improve migrant workers’ health and well-being status.