Reconceptualizing University Teacher Well-Being in the Post-Pandemic Era: The Structural Role of Work Modality and Work–Life Balance

In the wake of COVID-19, the reorganization of academic work has reignited the debate on how working conditions affect the well-being of university professors. In Latin America, where structural inequalities and digital divides persist, there is still limited evidence explaining the differences between face-to-face and virtual modalities. This study examines the effect of working conditions on the overall well-being of university professors in Peru. A quantitative, non-experimental, explanatory study was conducted with 448 teachers from public and private universities. Work well-being was measured using the General Labor Well-Being Questionnaire, and quality of life was measured using the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF instrument. As there was no evidence of discriminant validity between the two constructs, they were integrated into a higher-order factor called overall well-being. Structural relationships were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples.