Nonstandard work schedules in the UK: what are the implications for parental mental health and relationship happiness?
Nonstandard work schedules in the UK: what are the implications for parental mental health and relationship happiness?
This article investigates the associations between nonstandard work schedules, parents’ mental health, and couple relationship happiness across childhood using the Millennium Cohort Study, a longitudinal, population-based data set of births in the UK. Using individual fixed effects models, we investigated the relationship between maternal and paternal nonstandard work schedules, examining both separate and joint work schedules and mental health and relationship happiness. Although we did not observe any associations between mothers’ nonstandard work schedules and their mental health, we did find regularly working night schedules were associated with lower relationship happiness, and particularly so during the school-age period. Fathers’ evening and weekend work schedules were associated with worse mental health. The joint work schedule in which mothers worked a standard schedule and fathers worked nonstandard schedules was associated with lower relationship happiness for mothers and worse mental health for fathers. These results demonstrate the salience of incorporating fathers’ work schedules to understand the challenges and benefits to families of nonstandard work schedules. Our study also emphasizes the significance of investigating the family consequences of nonstandard work schedules in different country contexts.
United Kingdom, mental health, nonstandard work schedules, parental employment, relationship happiness
Zilanawala, Afshin
dddbeee8-798a-441c-bb79-f0d3908647dd
McMunn, Anne
0c5b8318-39c9-4ae6-8da5-ed2bb286a02b
24 May 2022
Zilanawala, Afshin
dddbeee8-798a-441c-bb79-f0d3908647dd
McMunn, Anne
0c5b8318-39c9-4ae6-8da5-ed2bb286a02b
Zilanawala, Afshin and McMunn, Anne
(2022)
Nonstandard work schedules in the UK: what are the implications for parental mental health and relationship happiness?
Community, Work & Family.
(doi:10.1080/13668803.2022.2077173).
Abstract
This article investigates the associations between nonstandard work schedules, parents’ mental health, and couple relationship happiness across childhood using the Millennium Cohort Study, a longitudinal, population-based data set of births in the UK. Using individual fixed effects models, we investigated the relationship between maternal and paternal nonstandard work schedules, examining both separate and joint work schedules and mental health and relationship happiness. Although we did not observe any associations between mothers’ nonstandard work schedules and their mental health, we did find regularly working night schedules were associated with lower relationship happiness, and particularly so during the school-age period. Fathers’ evening and weekend work schedules were associated with worse mental health. The joint work schedule in which mothers worked a standard schedule and fathers worked nonstandard schedules was associated with lower relationship happiness for mothers and worse mental health for fathers. These results demonstrate the salience of incorporating fathers’ work schedules to understand the challenges and benefits to families of nonstandard work schedules. Our study also emphasizes the significance of investigating the family consequences of nonstandard work schedules in different country contexts.
Text
Nonstandard_work_and_mental_health_CWF_RNR2_Final
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 6 April 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 May 2022
Published date: 24 May 2022
Additional Information:
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Funding for this research was provided by: Economic and Social Research Council (ES/J019119/1,ES/R003114/1)
Keywords:
United Kingdom, mental health, nonstandard work schedules, parental employment, relationship happiness
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 456718
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456718
ISSN: 1469-3615
PURE UUID: de2ba1e7-e95a-4318-9795-0788db16cf26
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Date deposited: 10 May 2022 16:36
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 02:11
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Author:
Anne McMunn
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