About this session

Saturday, 12:10 PM - 1:40 PM

Global Insights into ECE Workforce Well-Being, Working Conditions, and Turnover through Latent Profile Analysis

Understanding and improving the well-being and working conditions of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce—teachers, leaders, and program staff—is gaining global attention in the past decades (McDonald et al., 2018). ECE educators face high job demands and limited resources, such as low pay, contributing to poor well-being and high turnover rates (Authors, 2020; Grant et al., 2019; Hughes, 2012). This challenge is prevalent even in most of developed countries like Australia, Finland, and the U.S. (Authors, 2024; Bassok et al., 2021; Eskelinen et al., 2017). Given ongoing widespread global challenges to recruit, retain, and support the ECE workforce, there is a need for a holistic understanding of the field’s working conditions and well-being. However, most existing studies are limited in that they used variable-centered approaches, focusing on general patterns and predefined factors across population, overlooking important individual and group differences. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), a person-centered approach, can identify subgroups with distinctive characteristics within datasets, providing a more nuanced and deeper understanding of individual experiences.

Thus, this symposium will present findings from four countries—Finland, Singapore, Korea, and the U.S.—that highlight distinct profiles and associations between working conditions, ECE educator well-being, and turnover, using LPA. We expect that the symposium sparks future discussions on the importance of ECE educator well-being for the overall health, vitality, and long-term success of the sector and provide global implications for practice and policy

Paper #1
Title	Sustaining the Early Childhood Educators: How Job Demands and Resources Connect to Turnover Intention
Presenting author	Eerika Länsmans, Tampere University, Finland

Paper #2
Title	Latent Profiles of Early Childhood Teachers’ Well-Being: Predictors and Differences in Turnover Intentions in Korea
Presenting author	Jihyun Sung, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea

Paper #3
Title	Unpacking Early Childhood Educator Well-Being in Singapore: Job Demands and Resources Associated with Well-Being Profiles
Presenting author	Ee Lynn Ng, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Paper #4
Title	Relationships Between Working Conditions and Teacher Well-Being in the U.S.: A Latent Profile Analysis
Presenting author	Wonkyung Jang, University of Oklahoma, The United States

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Session chair
Dr. Kyong-Ah Kwon, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, United States

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