# When Cultural Resources Amplify Psychological Strain: Off-Work Music Listening, Homophily, and the Homesickness–Burnout Link Among Migrant Workers

## TL;DR

This study explores how migrant workers' homesickness relates to burnout, and how off-work music listening and social homophily can amplify this relationship.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel integration of job-demands–resources and temporal comparison theories to explain how cultural resources can increase psychological strain.

## Key findings

- Off-work music listening strengthens the link between homesickness and burnout.
- Coworker and roommate homophily enhance the interaction between music listening and homesickness in predicting burnout.

## Abstract

Hundreds of millions of migrants experience frequent homesickness that affects their psychological wellbeing. This study integrates the job-demands–resources model and temporal comparison theory to examine how music listening and similar activities involving coworker homophily and roommate homophily influence the relationship between homesickness and burnout. Our analysis of survey data from 2493 migrant workers reveals that off-work music listening strengthens the positive relationship between homesickness and burnout. Furthermore, coworker homophily and roommate homophily enhance the strength of the interaction between off-work music listening and homesickness as a predictor of burnout. Our findings demonstrate how seemingly supportive job resources can transform into psychological demands and thus have important theoretical and managerial implications.