Hidden labour, visible strain: coping with emotional demands and limited job resources in supporting non-traditional students

This paper explores how lecturers manage the emotional and structural demands of supporting non-traditional students in a UK higher education (HE) context. Non-traditional students are understood here as students who are under-represented in HE, including mature students, returning learners, and those from widening participation backgrounds, and who often experience intersecting disadvantages, including financial insecurity, limited academic confidence, and competing family or work commitments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 32 lecturers, the analysis integrates emotional labour theory and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to illuminate how staff navigate these pressures through emotional regulation, coping strategies, and boundary management within institutional constraints. The findings show that lecturers engaged in genuine empathy and sustained emotional engagement, including forms of “deep acting”, in response to students’ complex needs. Three key themes are identified: (1) complex needs and associated time and emotional demands, (2) gaps in personal tutoring and workload allocation models, and (3) copying strategies and boundary management. The study makes two key contributions. Theoretically, it demonstrates the value of integrating emotional labour and JD-R perspectives to explain the sustainability of academic care work. Empirically, it foregrounds the experiences of lecturers supporting non-traditional students, showing how emotional labour operates at the intersection of individual coping and institutional constraint. The paper concludes by arguing for institutional reform of workload and personal tutoring systems, alongside enhanced training, recognition, and resourcing, to transform pastoral care from hidden labour into sustainable and equitable academic practice.