How is work affecting your health?

How is work affecting your health?
We all know that our working lives have a huge impact on our physical, emotional and mental health. So, we were incredibly excited to be asked along to the latest policy roundtable event last week, organised by Understanding Society. If you haven't already, then do check out this fascinating study, the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind. Researchers from academic and non-academic institutions take a look at life changes and stability, making evidenced observations about family life, education, employment and health.

This time, the focus was on how work is affecting our health, and the findings supported what we at 9-2-3 see and hear every day. Some key findings included: high work-family-conflict is associated with psychological distress (and being able to flex can help reduce this); women who worked the longest hours experienced the poorest mental health (where long hours didn't seem to affect men as much). Another fascinating discussion was entitled: "Flexible working: how does it affect the health and well-being of working mothers?" Research concluded that reduced working hours, coupled with flexibility in the workplace, resulted in benefits in terms of stress levels. This was particularly found for mothers of two or more children. In addition, ‘poor work’ was worse for health than being unemployed. For us, this all points to the conclusion that employers should consider flexible working policies for a healthier, more motivated workforce.
10 June 2019