Work and Leisure

Work, leisure, time-pressure and stress 135• What factors can counter the negative effects of work overload and psychologicalstress on health?Relationships between work overload, time pressureand healthThe analyses summarised in Table 7.8 indicate that the relationships betweenhours of paid work and health, although weak, are positive rather than negative.Heavier paid workloads appear to be associated with above averagelevels of self-assessed mental health and fewer sleeping problems ratherthan the other way around. These relationships are confirmed by multivariateanalyses controlling for respondents’ employment status, age, gender, andeducation.The positive association between the length of the working hours andhealth should not be interpreted, however, as an indication that longer hoursof paid work contribute to better health. The direction of causality in thisinstance is, most likely, the opposite. Put simply, healthier people are morewilling and likely to work longer hours.Perceived time pressure, on the other hand, clearly has an overall negativeeffect on respondents’ physical and, particularly, mental health.Table 7.8 Relationships between workload, time crunch, stress and health, Canada, 1994,1998Paid workload Feelings oftime pressureStressSourcePearson ‘r’Paid workon the diarytime (min)Compositeindex(1–100)Psychologicalstress (1–5)GSS 1998 Self-assessed health (1-5) 0.04 -0.13 -0.13Satisfaction with health 0.03 -0.2 -0.21Sleeping problems -0.14 0.19 0.17Estimatedweekly hoursof paid workTaking ontoo manythingsChronic stressNPHS 1994 Physical health conditions 0.02 -0.09 -0.18Self-assessed health 0.06 -0.07 -0.22Mental health 0.08 -0.15 -0.4Use of anti-depressant drugs -0.03 0.06 0.13Sources: GSS and NHPS – see Table 7.1