Mental Health News: Researchers found that only one day employment or 8 hours a week significantly boosts mental health and life satisfaction. There is little evidence that working for more hours or a full five-day week further increases in wellbeing.
A lot of the adult population are living paycheck-to-paycheck, but due to artificial intelligence and automation advances, there is a high chance of significant shortage of paid work in the future.There will be less job opportunities and working hours per week will radically decrease.
Existing research shows that paid work is associated with mental health benefits like high self-esteem and social inclusion and unemployment affects people’s wellbeing, identity, status, time use, and sense of purpose in life. Now researchers at University of Cambridge monitored how changes in working hours impact mental health and life satisfaction in over 70,000 UK residents between 2009 and 2018.
The objective of the research was to figure out the amount of paid employment needed for gaining all the well-being and mental health benefits and the exact working hours at which the mental health of workers is at its highest.
The study findings published in the journal Social Science and Medicine, revealed that the risk of mental health problems reduced by an average of 30% in people who moved from the state of unemployment to paid work of eight hours or less a week. There was no evidence that more hours made any significant difference to mental health and well-being.
These findings have important implications as people will know the minimum amount of paid work they need in future with less jobs and little work to go around.
To Know More, You May Refer To
Kamerāde, D., Wang, S., Burchell, B., Balderson, S. U., & Coutts, A. (2019). A shorter working week for everyone: How much paid work is needed for mental health and well-being? Social Science & Medicine, 241, 112353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.06.006
