The Effect of Worktime Control on Overtime Employees’ Mental Health and Work-Family Conflict: The Mediating Role of Voluntary Overtime

Jiaoyang Yu and Stavroula Leka
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Jiaoyang Yu: School of Education, Taiyuan Normal University, Jinzhong 030619, China
Stavroula Leka: School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: Overtime has become a widespread phenomenon in the current information age that creates a high speed working pace and fierce competition in the high technology global economy. Based on the time-regulation mechanism and effort-recovery model, we examined the effect of worktime control (WTC) on mental health and work-family conflict (WFC) among overtime employees, and whether voluntary overtime mediated the relationships. We also examined two separate dimensions of WTC (control over time-off and control over daily hours). The results showed that control over time-off was related to decreased depression, anxiety, stress and WFC, while control over daily hours was related to decreased stress and WFC. Generally, control over time-off was beneficial to females and employees with dependents. Furthermore, mediation results showed that voluntary overtime was a complete mediator of relationships between WTC and depression and anxiety as well as a partial mediator of the relationship between WTC and stress. However, this study did not find a mediating effect of voluntary overtime on the WTC-WFC relationship. Limitations and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: worktime control; voluntary overtime; mental health; work-family conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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