Burnout in women: a comparative study between working and nonworking contexts

The aim of this paper is to study the incidence of burnout syndrome (emotional exhaustion, cynicism and professional competency) in a sample composed of women, and analyse the influence of their occupation (employees versus university students) in their level of burnout. The influence of the professional orientation of their degrees and the academic year on their level of burnout is also explored. The sample is composed by 283 women (N=214 university students and N=69 employees from different economic sectors). Results show that students manifest higher significant levels of emotional exhaustion and lower levels of professional competency than employees. Significant differences also appears for the students collective on the basis of the professional orientation of their degrees and the academic year. The limitations and implications of this study are also discussed.