ABSTRACT
One in five UK police officers suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, yet there is no gold standard measure of trauma exposure available. This study coded 4,987 exposures reported by 1,531 UK police officers, using their own language. The resulting checklist describes over 70% of typical ‘worst’ reported traumatic incidents (plus situational factors, including Covid19). The Police Traumatic Experiences Checklist is a practical tool of value for self-assessment and peer support, and can facilitate attempts by Occupational Health and management to improve monitoring and treatment access. © The Author(s) 2021.
ABSTRACT
Although reduced working time and furlough policy initiatives are widely regarded as important for economic and business reasons, little is known about their impacts on workers' mental health at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Panel Study data from 2018 to February 2020 and April 2020 and change score analysis, this study aims to compare mental health changes between those who worked reduced hours, were furloughed and left/lost paid work. The results suggest that at the onset of COVID-19 reduced working time and furlough can protect workers' mental health, but only for men not for women. The gender differences remain significant even after controlling for housework and childcare responsibilities at the onset of COVID-19. These results highlight the importance of distributing paid work more equitably and formulating gender-sensitive labour market policies in protection of workers' mental health.
ABSTRACT
Recent debates about whether the standard full-time working week (35-40 h) 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 favourable 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 emphasising the continued and crucial importance of job quality in debates on the future of work. These results also suggest that policymakers should pay particular attention to job quality when addressing the dramatic reduction in total hours of employment in Europe following the COVID-19 crisis. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society.