An organizational working time reduction and its impact on three domains of mental well-being of employees: a panel study.

BACKGROUND: Work hours are an important aspect of one's job and these in turn have the potential to impact people's well-being. Much research investigating the link between working hours and well-being uses cross-sectional data. Longitudinal studies, especially those studying the same subjects changing their working time, can study the impact of work time more clearly. Using panel data, this study aims to explore the impact of a reduction in working time on three domains of well-being: general well-being, job-related well-being (positive work experience) and work-family well-being (work-family conflict). In addition, our study offers insights into the role of concomitant changes in work and private circumstances of employees as we investigate whether the impact of shorter working hours for well-being is mediated by changes in the participants' and circumstances related to paid and unpaid work resources. METHOD: An organization of about 60 (female) employees trialed a shorter workweek for one calendar year in 2019. All full-time employees reduced their hours. The part-time working employees can be used as a control group. Panel data (survey and time-use diary data) of a 30-h workweek trial in Belgium was collected in four waves over two years in a pre- and post-intervention design. Change over time (waves) was analyzed through multilevel growth models. RESULT: A decrease in work-family conflict was observed during the shorter workweek. Part of this decrease is explained by concomitant changes in work and private circumstances, such as sufficiency in free time, schedule control, and satisfaction with work pressure. Positive work experience and general well-being tend to have decreased during the shorter workweek, although this could partly be explained by other organizational changes and not by the reduction in working hours per se. Schedule control helped suppress these somewhat negative effects of organizational changes on positive work experience. CONCLUSION: Reduced working hours have the largest and most positive impact on work-family conflict. The feeling of having enough leisure time contributes to this increased well-being. Especially for women, who were the majority in this study, a reduction in working time might be beneficial as they often bear more responsibility for household work and care tasks. Next to the duration of working time, schedule control/autonomy has an important impact on well-being.

Locking Down Gender Roles? A Time-Use Perspective on Gender Division of Household Labour during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Belgium.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of household labour could continue to lock down or start to break gender roles. Using time-use data of n = 473 individuals collected during the lockdown restrictions in Belgium from March to May 2020, we analyse the gendered division of routine and non-routine household labour in absolute time use and relative shares. We compare against the Belgian time-use data of 2013 for the same time period (n = 678 individuals). A time-demanding work and living situation associate with an increase in men's time spent on household labour during the lockdown but not with a change in women's time use. The gender gap closes in absolute time but not in relative shares of routine and non-routine household labour. The limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender division of household labour indicates a temporal rather than a substantial change in gender roles.