What matters more for employees' mental health : job quality or job quantity?

Wang, S; Kamerāde, D; Burchell, B; Coutts, A; Balderson, U

Abstract

Recent debates about whether the standard full-time working week (35-40 hours) can be
replaced by a shorter working week have received extensive attention. Using 2015 European
Working Conditions Survey data, this study contributes to these debates by exploring the
relationships between job quantity, job quality and employees’ mental health. Overall, we find
that a job’s quality matters more than its quantity as measured in hours per week. The results
show that actual working hours are hardly related to employees’ mental health but job quality,
especially intrinsically meaningful work, less intensified work and having a favorable social
environment, has positive effects on employee mental health, even in jobs with short working
hours. Moreover, although working less than one prefers (under-employment) has negative
effects, these negative effects become much smaller in size and non-significant in good quality
jobs, especially in jobs with skill discretion and good job prospects. These findings develop the
debates about a shorter standard working week by emphasizing the continued and crucial
importance of job quality in debates on the future of work. These results also suggest that policy
makers should pay particular attention to job quality when addressing the dramatic reduction in
total hours of employment in Europe following the COVID-19 crisis.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 1, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Dec 10, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 10, 2021
• Deposit Date: Nov 18, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2021
• Journal: Cambridge Journal of Economics
• Print ISSN: 0309-166X
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-3545
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Pages: beab054
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beab054
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beab054
• Related Public URLs: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/
• Additional Information: Funders : Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust;The Health Foundation;National University of Singapore Assistant Professor Startup Grant and Centre for Family and Population Research Faculty Development Grant; Projects : Health and Care Sustainability programme; Grant Number: 1273834