The well-being disparity among female and male expat English teachers in Asia (original) (raw)

Well-being has a well-established link to physical and psychological health across the lifespan of individuals (Steptoe et al., 2015). Occupational well-being has a well-known association with positive outcomes in the workplace, such as higher job satisfaction, lower stress, higher morale, higher employee retention rates, higher occupational commitment, and better performance (Cotton & Hart, 2003; Hascher & Waber, 2021; McInerny et al., 2015). It is also an important aspect of teachers’ working lives, as indicated in a recent volume about professionalism in English language teaching (Coombe et al., 2020). Because of its importance, Mercer (2021) argued that well-being should become a priority in the research and practice of language teaching. However, despite some recent contributions (e.g., Gregersen et al., 2020), the impetus for the present study lies in the fact that there is still “very little research available that investigates language teachers’ psychological health” (MacIntyre et al., 2019, p. 27). In order to help address this gap, the study will investigate the psychological well-being of expatriate English language teachers in Asia, that is, native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) who have migrated to the region to teach English.