More pain than gain: Effort–reward imbalance, burnout, and withdrawal intentions within a university student population

Despite the widespread prevalence of psychological distress that affects many higher education students, existing student-stress research remains largely atheoretical. To address this gap, this paper applies Siegrist’s (1996) effort-reward imbalance model in a theoretical investigation of student stress. We surveyed Australian university students (N = 2,451) to identify whether discrepancies between efforts expended and rewards obtained influence student-distress outcomes (e.g., withdrawal/departure intentions). More than one-third of the students (37.5%) reported detrimental effort-reward imbalances, and these imbalances positively correlated with burnout and withdrawal intentions. Ultimately, burnout fully mediated the relationship between effort-reward imbalance and withdrawal intentions for both first-year and subsequent-year students. Unexpectedly, student resilience did not moderate these relationships. In light of these results, implications pertaining to the conceptualization and management of student distress and attrition are offered.