Worktime control and mental health of employees working long hours: the role of age and gender

Introduction
A substantial increase in working hours has been observed in the European countries during the last decade. Studies exploring the link between worktime control and health are still very rare, particularly in long working employees. The aim of this study was thus to examine the relationship between worktime control and mental health in employees working long hours. Moreover, it has been attempted to state how the abovementioned relationship depends on employee’s age and gender.

Methods
Three hundred six white collar workers performing clerical work for more than 8 hours daily have been diagnosed on worktime control (3-item scale) and mental health using GHQ-28.

Results
The results of univariate analysis of variance showed that workers having high control over their long working hours had significantly higher level of their mental health with regard to somatic complaints, anxiety and marginally to social dysfunction comparing to workers with low control over their long working hours. It has been shown that prime-age women working long hours reported significantly higher level of somatic complaints and anxiety than did men at this age and women in other studied age categories. Moreover, those of them who did not have control over their long worktime suffered from significantly higher level of depression comparing to other females. It has also been found that male workers at the age of 28-34 reported significantly higher level of social dysfunction than did other man and the oldest men working long, rigid hours had significantly higher level of depression than the youngest men.

Discussion
It has been hypothesized that inability to start a family or to fulfil family duties related to bringing up young children and that some other than work-family factors, such as inability to fulfil social committeemen’s or poor working conditions might be the possible explanation for the results obtained in this study.