Psychological determinants of long working hours among elementary and junior high school teachers in Japan: Focusing on workaholism and work engagement

Teachers in Japan routinely work substantially longer hours than teachers in many other countries, partly because they are expected to devote themselves to pupils as a kind of calling and to undertake numerous unpaid tasks such as extracurricular club supervision. To clarify how such working conditions are reflected in teachers’ psychology and behaviour, we analyzed links among job demands, job resources, workaholism, work engagement, well-being, and overtime work among public school teachers. The analysis was informed by a framework that distinguishes job characteristics into demands and resources. Questionnaire data were collected from 436 homeroom teachers in public elementary and junior high schools across Japan. Using structural equation modelling, we found that richer job resources were associated with lower workaholism and higher work engagement, whereas stronger job demands were related to higher levels of both forms of work investment. Workaholism, in turn, was associated with poorer well-being and with longer overtime hours. Work engagement was positively related to well-being but showed no meaningful association with overtime. These results point to two qualitatively different ways of investing heavily in work: a compulsive pattern that undermines health and extends working time, and a more positive pattern that supports well-being without increasing hours. For Japanese schools, the findings highlight the need to curb unhealthy, compulsive overwork while expanding job resources that allow teachers to remain highly engaged in a sustainable manner. • This study examined workaholism and work engagement among Japanese schoolteachers using the JD–R framework. • Job demands showed positive associations with both workaholism and work engagement. • Job resources were associated with lower workaholism and higher work engagement. • The behavioral dimension of workaholism was associated with longer overtime hours. • Work engagement was related to higher well-being without increasing working hours.