IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/hecrev/v12y2022i1d10.1186_s13561-022-00396-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does less working time improve life satisfaction? Evidence from European Social Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Qinglong Shao

    (Freie Universität Berlin)

Abstract

Background Worktime is one of the main drivers of life satisfaction, and a balanced distribution of working hours and leisure hours directly impacts feelings of well-being. Based on previous studies, we seek to confirm this relationship in the European context and explore other potential driving forces of life satisfaction. Health condition as the mediating variable is also examined. Methods This article uses an ordered probit model to analyze the impact of working time on life satisfaction using data extracted from the most recent round (wave 10) of the European Social Survey (ESS). Hypotheses are proposed to test the impact of working time on life satisfaction, the mediating effect of health in the worktime–satisfaction nexus, and the effects of social inclusion, social trust, feelings of safety, and digitalization on life satisfaction. Results The results reveal a negative and significant correlation between hours of work and life satisfaction, thus implying that a shorter working week can improve Europeans’ life satisfaction. Health is found to be an important intermediate variable that plays an essential role in the dynamic through which working times influence life satisfaction. Further, we find that those in the middle class prefer to work shorter hours to achieve a higher feeling of satisfaction and that high earners to a lesser extent, while low earners generally show no preference. Employees of private firms are more satisfied with shorter working hours, while satisfaction for those working in public institutions is not affected by changes in hours worked. Finally, we verify the robustness of our estimations by replacing life satisfaction with happiness. Conclusions Working fewer hours contributes to higher life satisfaction in Europe, and health plays an essential mediating role in this relationship. Social inclusion, social trust, feelings of safety and digitalization all play a factor in improving life satisfaction. Compared to other job categories, private sector employees can achieve greater life satisfaction from reducing their total working time.

Suggested Citation

  • Qinglong Shao, 2022. "Does less working time improve life satisfaction? Evidence from European Social Survey," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:hecrev:v:12:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-022-00396-6
    DOI: 10.1186/s13561-022-00396-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s13561-022-00396-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s13561-022-00396-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C Burda & Daniel S Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2007. "Total Work, Gender and Social Norms," Working Papers hal-00972818, HAL.
    2. Peggy Schyns, 1998. "Crossnational Differences in Happiness: Economic and Cultural Factors Explored," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 3-26, February.
    3. Michael Lechner & Gabriel Okasa, 2019. "Random Forest Estimation of the Ordered Choice Model," Papers 1907.02436, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    4. David Bell & Steffen Otterbach & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2012. "Work Hours Constraints and Health," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 105-106, pages 35-54.
    5. Welsch, Heinz, 2006. "Environment and happiness: Valuation of air pollution using life satisfaction data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 801-813, July.
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8650 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8651 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Xiao Tan & Leah Ruppanner & Belinda Hewitt & David Maume, 2022. "Restless sleep and emotional wellbeing among European full-time dual-earner couples: gendered impacts of children and workplace demands," Contemporary Social Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 396-411, August.
    9. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8651 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8650 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Becker, William E. & Kennedy, Peter E., 1992. "A Graphical Exposition of the Ordered Probit," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 127-131, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hua Pang & Qinglong Shao, 2023. "Unpacking the Potential Influence of Life Satisfaction on Network Heterogeneity, Emotional Exhaustion and Mobile App Fatigue: A Stressor–Strain–Outcome Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-16, February.
    2. Shao, Qinglong & Kostka, Genia, 2023. "The COVID-19 pandemic and deepening digital inequalities in China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Rode, 2013. "Do Good Institutions Make Citizens Happy, or Do Happy Citizens Build Better Institutions?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(5), pages 1479-1505, October.
    2. Maddison, David & Rehdanz, Katrin, 2011. "The impact of climate on life satisfaction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2437-2445.
    3. Shvartsman, Elena & Beckmann, Michael, 2015. "Stressed by your job: What is the role of personnel policy?," Working papers 2015/15, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    4. Luigi Bonatti, 2007. "Evolution of preferences and cross-country differences in time devoted to market work," Department of Economics Working Papers 0719, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    5. Otrachshenko, Vladimir & Tyurina, Elena & Nagapetyan, Artur, 2022. "The economic value of the Glass Beach: Contingent valuation and life satisfaction approaches," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    6. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    7. Laura Jeanet Martínez Rodríguez, 2017. "Impacto de la ola invernal sobre las dinámicas de uso del tiempo de hogares rurales," Documentos CEDE 15603, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    8. Myung-Jae Hwang & Jong-Hun Kim & Hae-Kwan Cheong, 2020. "Short-Term Impacts of Ambient Air Pollution on Health-Related Quality of Life: A Korea Health Panel Survey Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Salahodjaev, Raufhon & Yuldashev, Oybek, 2016. "Intelligence and greenhouse gas emissions: Introducing Intelligence Kuznets curve," MPRA Paper 68997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Pan Zhang & Zhiguo Wang, 2019. "PM 2.5 Concentrations and Subjective Well-Being: Longitudinal Evidence from Aggregated Panel Data from Chinese Provinces," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-13, March.
    11. Mengmeng Meng & Weiguo Fan & Jianchang Lu & Xiaobin Dong & Hejie Wei, 2020. "Research on the Influence of Energy Utilization and Economic Development on Human Well-Being in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-26, December.
    12. Zuoxian Gan & Tao Feng & Min Yang, 2018. "Exploring the Effects of Car Ownership and Commuting on Subjective Well-Being: A Nationwide Questionnaire Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-20, December.
    13. Ming, Yaxin & Deng, Huixin & Wu, Xiaoyue, 2022. "The negative effect of air pollution on people's pro-environmental behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 72-87.
    14. Holst, Elke & Seifert, Hartmut, 2012. "Arbeitszeitpolitische Kontroversen im Spiegel der Arbeitszeitwünsche," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 65(2), pages 141-149.
    15. Otterbach, Steffen & Wooden, Mark & Fok, Yin King, 2016. "Working-Time Mismatch and Mental Health," IZA Discussion Papers 9818, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Domenico Tabasso, 2011. "With or Without You: Hazard of Divorce and Intra-household Allocation of Time," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2011n07, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    17. Ida Kubiszewski & Kenneth Mulder & Diane Jarvis & Robert Costanza, 2022. "Toward better measurement of sustainable development and wellbeing: A small number of SDG indicators reliably predict life satisfaction," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 139-148, February.
    18. Kuroda, Sachiko, 2010. "Do Japanese Work Shorter Hours than before? Measuring trends in market work and leisure using 1976-2006 Japanese time-use survey," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 481-502, December.
    19. BARTOLINI Stefano & SARRACINO Francesco, 2011. "Happy for How Long? How Social Capital and GDP relate to Happiness over Time," LISER Working Paper Series 2011-60, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    20. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:hecrev:v:12:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-022-00396-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13561 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.