Why Do People Overwork at the Risk of Impairing Mental Health?

Sachiko Kuroda and Isamu Yamamoto

Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)

Abstract: Using longitudinal data of Japanese workers, this study investigates the relationship between overwork and mental health. Conventional labor supply theory assumes that people allocate their hours of work and leisure to maximize personal utility. However, people sometimes work too long (overwork) and, by doing so, impair their physical and/or mental health. We introduce non-pecuniary factors into the conventional utility function. Empirical analysis reveals a non-linear relationship between the number of hours worked and job satisfaction. We find that job satisfaction rises when people work more than 55 hours weekly. However, we also find that hours worked linearly erode workers' mental health. These findings imply that people who overvalue job satisfaction work excessive hours and, as a consequence, damage their mental health. We find that people form incorrect beliefs about the mental health risks of overwork, leading them to work longer hours. These results might justify interventions, such as capping the number of hours worked to reduce related mental issues.

Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/16e037.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Why Do People Overwork at the Risk of Impairing Mental Health? (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eti:dpaper:16037

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by TANIMOTO, Toko ().