Abstract
Purpose
Workers’ health can be influenced by risk factors from their family environments as well as their work environments. This paper sought to examine how the association between long working hours and depressive symptoms differs based on the level of FWC after being stratified by worker’s gender.
Methods
We used the dataset of 20,384 full-time wage workers from the sixth Korean Working Conditions Survey (2020). Long working hours were defined as working 52 h or more per week. FWC was measured using a 2-item questionnaire, and depressive symptoms were measured using the WHO-5 well-being index. Applying modified Poisson regression, we evaluated how the association between long working hours and depressive symptoms differs by the level of FWC male and female workers separately.
Results
In the analysis of the female workers, long working hours were associated with depressive symptoms in the high FWC group (PR 1.35, 95% CI 1.17, 1.55) after adjusting for potential confounders whereas no association was observed in the low FWC group. Among the male workers, a statistically significant association was observed in both high FWC (PR 1.22, 95% CI 1.07, 1.38) and low FWC (PR 1.28, 95% CI 1.12, 1.47) groups.
Conclusion
FWC may act as a workplace stressor that potentially amplifies the health impact of long working hours among female workers.
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Data availability
The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Safety and Health Policy Research Department (Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, OSHRI) repository, https://www.kosha.or.kr/oshri/researchField/workingEnvironmentSurvey.do.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF-2023S1A5A2A03084402). Also, we would like to thank Safety and Health Policy Research Department (Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, OSHRI) for offering raw-data of Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS). The paper's contents are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official vies of the OSHRI.
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Conceptualization: SSK, GL. Data curation: SSK, GL. Formal analysis: GL. Funding acquisition: None. Writing – original draft: GL. Writing – review & editing: SSK, GL, JHK.
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This research study was conducted retrospectively from data which are publicly available under permission from KOSHA. Informed consent was not required to use the dataset. This study was exempted from Institutional Review Board approval by Seoul National University (IRB No. E2211/001-005).
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Lee, G., Kim, JH. & Kim, SS. Female workers with long working hours are more likely to have depressive symptoms when having family-to-work conflict. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 97, 199–206 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-023-02024-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-023-02024-0