Ann Occup Environ Med.  2018 ;30(1):38. 10.1186/s40557-018-0250-z.

The work–life balance and psychosocial well-being of South Korean workers

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine & Institute of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Pusan Paik Hospital, Inje University, Hospital, 75, Bokji-ro, Busanjin-gu, Busan, 47392 Republic of Korea. chsuh@paik.ac.kr.

Abstract

BACKGROUND
It is challenging to balance work and life, and little attention has been paid to the work-life balance and psychosocial well-being of South Koreans. We assessed the association between work-life balance and psychosocial well-being among paid Korean workers.
METHODS
This study was based on data from the fourth Korean Working Conditions Survey. We evaluated only paid workers, which constituted 30,649 of the total of 50,007 subjects surveyed. Poor work-life balance was defined based on the goodness of fit between working hours and social commitments. Well-being was measured using the World Health Organization WHO-5 index. Poisson regression with robust variances was used to calculate the estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) with confidence intervals.
RESULTS
Poor work-life balance was associated with poor psychosocial well-being (PR"‰="‰1.25; 95% CI 1.21 to 1.28) even after adjusting for work-related and individual characteristics. Poor well-being was associated with low-level job autonomy (PR"‰="‰1.06; 95% CI 1.03 to 1.09), working for ≥53 h per week (PR"‰="‰1.10; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.14), blue-collar status (PR"‰="‰1.16; 95% CI 1.11 to 1.21), low-level support at work (PR"‰="‰1.32; 95% CI 1.29 to 1.36), age"‰â‰¥"‰50 years (PR"‰="‰1.21; 95% CI 1.15 to 1.26), the female gender (95% CI PR"‰="‰1.04; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.07), and cohabitation (living with somebody) (PR"‰="‰1.08; 95% CI 1.04 to 1.12). Good well-being was associated with high-intensity work (PR"‰="‰0.96; 95% CI 0.94 to 0.99), being the secondary earner in a household (PR"‰="‰0.82; 95% CI 0.79 to 0.85), and higher income (PR"‰="‰0.75; 95% CI 0.71 to 0.79).
CONCLUSION
Work-life balance was associated with psychosocial well-being after adjusting for both work-related and individual characteristics.

Keyword

Work–life balance; Psychosocial well-being; KWCS; WHO-5 index

MeSH Terms

Family Characteristics
Female
Humans
Prevalence
World Health Organization
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