IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/manchs/v89y2021i6p541-568.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Weekend working in 21st century Britain: Does it matter for the well‐being of workers?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew M. Bryce

Abstract

On any given weekend, over a fifth of the UK labour force is at work, while more than half of working adults report working at the weekend at least some of the time. This is despite the fact that weekends are conventionally set aside as rest days. The question that this paper addresses is: does this matter? This paper adds to the literature by using two large panel datasets to analyse the effects of weekend working on eight different measures of subjective well‐being in the UK. I find that weekend working has a significant impact on how satisfied people are with the amount of leisure time they have, with the results suggesting that avoiding weekend working is equivalent to working six fewer hours per week. Moreover, people working at the weekend report significantly lower happiness yesterday than non‐weekend workers. While weekend workers also experience lower levels of life satisfaction than non‐weekend workers, this difference disappears when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity between individuals. This suggests that there is no evidence that weekend working causes people to be worse off overall.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew M. Bryce, 2021. "Weekend working in 21st century Britain: Does it matter for the well‐being of workers?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 89(6), pages 541-568, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:89:y:2021:i:6:p:541-568
    DOI: 10.1111/manc.12375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/manc.12375
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/manc.12375?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. Bardasi, Elena & Francesconi, Marco, 2004. "The impact of atypical employment on individual wellbeing: evidence from a panel of British workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(9), pages 1671-1688, May.
    2. Alex Bryson & George MacKerron, 2017. "Are You Happy While You Work?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(599), pages 106-125, February.
    3. Simon Georges-Kot & Dominique Goux & Eric Maurin, 2017. "Following the Crowd: Leisure Complementarities beyond the Household," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(4), pages 1061-1088.
    4. Jonathan Gruber & Daniel M. Hungerman, 2008. "The Church Versus the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 831-862.
    5. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    6. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    7. Dickerson, Andy & Hole, Arne Risa & Munford, Luke A., 2014. "The relationship between well-being and commuting revisited: Does the choice of methodology matter?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 321-329.
    8. Alex Bryson & George MacKerron, 2017. "Are You Happy While You Work?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(599), pages 106-125, February.
    9. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1999. "The Timing of Work over Time," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(452), pages 37-66, January.
    10. Andrew Bryce, 2018. "Finding meaning through work: eudaimonic well-being and job type in the US and UK," Working Papers 2018004, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrew M. Bryce, 2019. "Weekend working in 21st century Britain:Does it matter for well-being?," Working Papers 2019007, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    2. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2021. "How Job Changes Affect People's Lives — Evidence from Subjective Well‐Being Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 279-306, June.
    3. Diane Pelly, 2023. "Worker Well-Being and Quit Intentions: Is Measuring Job Satisfaction Enough?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 397-441, September.
    4. Thi Truong An Hoang & Andreas Knabe, 2021. "Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2525-2548, August.
    5. Blanchflower, David G. & Bryson, Alex, 2022. "Taking the pulse of nations: A biometric measure of well-being," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    6. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. Van Ours, 2008. "Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness: The Part‐Time Work Puzzle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 77-99, February.
    7. Andrea Baldin & Trine Bille, 2023. "The lost value for users of cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a life satisfaction approach," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 70(2), pages 257-281, June.
    8. Guillaume Gueguen & Claudia Senik, 2023. "Adopting telework: The causal impact of working from home on subjective well‐being," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 832-868, December.
    9. Tobias Wolf & Maria Metzing & Richard E. Lucas, 2022. "Experienced Well-Being and Labor Market Status: The Role of Pleasure and Meaning," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 691-721, September.
    10. Huang, Li & Devlin, Nancy & Chen, Gang & Dalziel, Kim, 2024. "A happiness approach to valuing health states for children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).
    11. Chadi, Adrian & Hetschko, Clemens, 2013. "Flexibilisation without hesitation? Temporary contracts and workers' satisfaction," Discussion Papers 2013/3, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    12. Rasciute, Simona & Downward, Paul & Simmons, Nick, 2023. "Valuation of subjective wellbeing and the role of marital status: Linear versus ordinal estimators," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Eva M. Berger, 2009. "Maternal Employment and Happiness: The Effect of Non-Participation and Part-Time Employment on Mothers' Life Satisfaction," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 890, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Eva M. Berger, 2013. "Happy Working Mothers? Investigating the Effect of Maternal Employment on Life Satisfaction," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(317), pages 23-43, January.
    15. Finbarr Brereton & J. Peter Clinch & Susana Ferreira, 2008. "Employment and Life-Satisfaction: Insights from Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 39(3), pages 207-234.
    16. Sophia Schmitz, 2020. "The Impact of Publicly Funded Childcare on Parental Well-Being: Evidence from Cut-Off Rules," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 171-196, April.
    17. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2017. "Income or Leisure? On the Hidden Benefits of (Un-) Employment," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201706, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
    18. Chris Hand, 2018. "Do the arts make you happy? A quantile regression approach," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(2), pages 271-286, May.
    19. Bindong Sun & Jie Lin & Chun Yin, 2021. "How does commute duration affect subjective well-being? A case study of Chinese cities," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 885-908, April.
    20. Gueguen, Guillaume & Senik, Claudia, 2022. "Adopting Telework. The causal impact of working from home on subjective well-being in 2020," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2201, CEPREMAP.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:manchs:v:89:y:2021:i:6:p:541-568. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

    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.