diff --git a/python/pyspark/context.py b/python/pyspark/context.py
index 6137ed25a0dd..180a3e882dab 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/context.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/context.py
@@ -493,6 +493,14 @@ def getStart(split):
                 return start0 + int((split * size / numSlices)) * step
 
             def f(split, iterator):
+                # it's an empty iterator here but we need this line for triggering the
+                # logic of signal handling in FramedSerializer.load_stream, for instance,
+                # SpecialLengths.END_OF_DATA_SECTION in _read_with_length. Since
+                # FramedSerializer.load_stream produces a generator, the control should
+                # at least be in that function once. Here we do it by explicitly converting
+                # the empty iterator to a list, thus make sure worker reuse takes effect.
+                # See more details in SPARK-26549.
+                assert len(list(iterator)) == 0
                 return xrange(getStart(split), getStart(split + 1), step)
 
             return self.parallelize([], numSlices).mapPartitionsWithIndex(f)
diff --git a/python/pyspark/tests/test_worker.py b/python/pyspark/tests/test_worker.py
index a33b77d98341..a4f108f18e17 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/tests/test_worker.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/tests/test_worker.py
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 
 from py4j.protocol import Py4JJavaError
 
-from pyspark.testing.utils import ReusedPySparkTestCase, QuietTest
+from pyspark.testing.utils import ReusedPySparkTestCase, PySparkTestCase, QuietTest
 
 if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
     xrange = range
@@ -145,6 +145,16 @@ def test_with_different_versions_of_python(self):
             self.sc.pythonVer = version
 
 
+class WorkerReuseTest(PySparkTestCase):
+
+    def test_reuse_worker_of_parallelize_xrange(self):
+        rdd = self.sc.parallelize(xrange(20), 8)
+        previous_pids = rdd.map(lambda x: os.getpid()).collect()
+        current_pids = rdd.map(lambda x: os.getpid()).collect()
+        for pid in current_pids:
+            self.assertTrue(pid in previous_pids)
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     import unittest
     from pyspark.tests.test_worker import *