Background The occupational burnout of preschool teachers relates to the long-term healthy development of preschool education in our country. However, most of the existing studies are cross-sectional design, ignoring the change of preschool teachers’ occupational burnout level in the process of social development, and rarely discussing the influence of macro social factors on preschool teachers’ occupational burnout.

Objective To explore the trend and macro influencing factors of preschool teachers’ occupational burnout in China from 2004 to 2022.

Methods Research literature using Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) on occupational burnout of preschool teachers were searched in domestic and foreign databases (Wanfang Data, CNKI, VIP Information, Web of Science, SpringerLink, ProQuest, Embase, Wiley, Elsevier, PubMed, and Cochrane Library). The search period was from the date of the database creation to December 31, 2023. The obtained literature was selected by a predetermined criteria on inclusion and exclusion, and followed by data extraction and research dataset construction. Yearly trends of burnout was presented by scatter plots. Regression models were fitted to estimate effect size d for the associations between selected dimensions and burnout in years of 2004 to 2022 (0.2<d≤0.5: small effect, 0.5<d≤0.8: medium effect, d>0.8: large effect). In addition, collect relevant social indicators (including 7 factors reflecting 4 aspects of industry competition pressure, economic pressure, work pressure, and social support) were incorporated to the dataset to examine impact of macro social factors on the change of occupational burnout of preschool teachers by lagged correlation analysis.

Results A total of 28 research reports measuring occupational burnout of preschool teachers using the MBI-ES were included, involving a total of 11115 preschool teachers. The data collection spanned from 2004 to 2022, covering a period of 19 years. The results of the meta-analysis show that the total score of the inventory and the means of the three dimensions exhibited an increasing trend over years. After controlling for sample size and additional variables, the total score of the inventory, emotional exhaustion, and reduced personal accomplishment were all significantly positively correlated with the year (b=0.0507, 0.0339, 0.0539, P<0.05). In terms of effect size, the overall occupational burnout (d=1.21) and reduced personal accomplishment (d=0.94) showed large effects, while emotional exhaustion (d=0.64) demonstrated a moderate effect, and depersonalization (d=0.42) met the criteria for a small effect. After controlling for sample size, the mean level of occupational burnout among preschool teachers was positively correlated with the proportion of highly educated preschool teachers, housing prices, the consumer price index, urbanization rate, and the number of court cases filed in the current year, one year prior, and three years prior (0.0419≤b≤4.6883, P＜0.01), and also positively correlated with the divorce rate three years prior (b=0.4226, P＜0.01), but negatively correlated with the household size in the current year, one year prior, and three years prior (b=−2.0619, −1.5361, −2.1573, P＜0.05).

Conclusion Over the past 19 years, the occupational burnout levels of preschool teachers in China have been increasing year by year. The seven social indicators, which reflect the pressure of industry competition, economic pressure, work pressure, and social support, have certain correlation to the change of the burnout level of preschool teachers in China.