- Email: [email protected]
Flexible work hours, ageing and well-being
International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23 – 28
www.ics-elsevier.com
Flexible work hours, ageing and well-being G. Costa*, S. Sartori Department of Medicine and Public Health, University of Verona, Italy
Abstract. The increasing diversification of working time patterns reflects broader societal reasons, involving social development, economic efficiency and individual preferences. The modern society is changing quite rapidly not only in terms of economic and productive strategies, but mainly in terms of social organisation and individual behaviours and careers, and this is certainly due also to the progressive ageing of the general and working populations. Over the last decades an increasing interest in btemporal flexibilityQ can be observed: that leads, on one hand, to a demand for an increase in the number of hours during which the production is possible (Company-oriented flexibility) and, on the other hand, to a desire for a reduction of individual working hours and/or an increase in the autonomy of their regulation (Individual-oriented flexibility). Also the society is interested in flexible working hours, as many advantages can derive from a more flexible arrangement of social activities and services. According to the results of a recent SALTSA project, longer and irregular working hours are in general associated with lower levels of health and wellbeing. Moreover, low (individual) flexibility and high variability of work hours (that is company based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and well-being, while low variability combined with high autonomy were associated with positive effects. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Working hours; Flexibility; Health; Aging
1. Introduction According to the 3rd EU Survey on Working Conditions, carried out in 2000 in the 15 European countries [1], the so-called bnormalQ or bstandardQ working hours (that is daytime and 5-day weekly work) represent more the exception than the rule: in fact, if we consider the 21,703 workers of the sample, and we eliminate progressively the persons
T Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 45 8027 634; fax: +39 45 8027 633. E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Costa). 0531-5131/ D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ics.2005.02.081
24
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
Table 1 % distribution of weekly working hours (WH) according to age groups, gender and way of employment WH
Self-employed
Employed
Age
b30 30–39 40 N40 b30 30–39 40 N40
Age
15–24
25–39
40–54
55+
13.95 11.63 17.44 54.65 38.24 8.82 11.76 41.18
5.75 16.23 16.11 59.84 15.58 24.38 17.61 39.50
4.68 13.82 18.38 61.42 16.94 19.15 15.10 45.86
11.91 18.89 13.14 51.33 20.31 19.79 15.10 41.67
Men
Women
15–24
25–39
40–54
55+
13.58 32.20 34.19 19.45 30.20 33.57 25.60 9.92
5.08 35.37 35.71 23.22 28.39 39.29 22.99 8.97
4.35 38.38 35.40 21.42 28.89 41.27 20.35 9.05
8.04 34.57 34.81 22.21 30.65 38.39 21.77 8.55
working (a) more than 40 h/week, (b) more than 10 h/day, (c) on shifts, (d) at night, (e) on Sunday, (f) part-time, and (g) on Saturday, we can find that people working on bnormalQ daytime work (i.e. between 7.30–8 AM and 5–6 PM, and from Monday to Friday) are now only 24% of the whole population, in particular 27% of employed and only 8% of selfemployed workers [2]. Significant differences can be also noticed according to gender and age, where overtime for men and the youngest, and part-time work for women and the elder cause the largest differences (Table 1). The increasing diversification of working time patterns reflects broader societal reasons, involving social development, economic efficiency and individual preferences. The modern society is changing quite rapidly not only in terms of economic and productive strategies (e.g. new technologies, market globalisation, information processes), but mainly in terms of social organisation and individual behaviours and careers, and this is certainly due also to the progressive ageing of the general and working populations. 2. Flexibility/variability of working hours There are several approaches and models to define blabour flexibilityQ, depending on the different work, social and personal variables/parameters/perspectives you may take into account. As pointed out by Goudswaard and De Nanteuil [3], bflexibility emerges as a heterogeneous concept, mixing two series of variables, quantitative/qualitative and external/internal, with consequent several possible combinationsQ, which include bnumerical flexibilityQ (e.g. permanent/temporal contracts, work on demand), bgeographical flexibilityQ (e.g. subcontracting, outsourcing), bfunctional flexibilityQ (e.g. job enrichment, team work, project groups), and btemporal flexibilityQ (e.g. night and shift work, part-time, overtime, compressed work week). What we are considering in this paper is the last aspect, but we are aware that the various forms are often strictly linked to each other; consequently, positive or negative consequences, that may derive from different arrangements, are influenced more from their interactions rather than as a direct effect of a single factor. The search for ways and methods suitable for increasing the flexibility of the working systems and, in particular, of working times can include several different interventions both
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
25
in short- and long-term periods according to the temporal scales that one may consider. In practical they can deal with: (a) increasing working hours with higher salary (e.g. daily or weekly overtime, delayed retirement); (b) re-arrangement of the same amount of working hours (e.g. variable start and finishing times, compressed work week, annual bank of hours); (c) reduction of working hours at the same level of salary (e.g. bank of paid leaves, week-end work, early retirement); (d) reduction of working hours with reduced salary (e.g. horizontal and vertical part-time, job sharing); and (e) reduction of working hours with transfer of costs to the community (solidarity contracts, pre-term retirement). The type of intervention depends on the prevailing factors that at different times influence political choices in work and social organization. In the short-term, for example, one may expect that work hours may be altered for limited periods in terms of increased or decreased hours worked per day or week and/or changed position of work hours in order to cope with increasing temporal (seasonal, peak hours, just-in-time production) demands for goods and services, as well as to reduce production costs. In the long-term, the interventions are linked to more complex planning or adjustment of professional career, and to adaptations of working life to living and social conditions, also in the perspective of the progressive ageing of the general and working population. Over the last decades an increasing interest in btemporal flexibilityQ can be observed: that leads, on one hand, to a demand for an increase in the number of hours during which the production is possible (Company-oriented flexibility) and, on the other hand, to a desire for a reduction of individual working hours and/or an increase in the autonomy of their regulation (Individual-oriented flexibility). Also the society is interested in flexible working hours, as many advantages can derive from a more flexible arrangement of social activities and services. 3. Health related problems Although it can be easily speculated that, in general, individual-based bflexibilityQ should improve health and well-being, and especially satisfaction, whereas companybased bflexibilityQ might interfere negatively, the effective consequences on health and well-being have still to be analysed properly, both in general and in relation to ageing, taking into account both subjective and objective criteria and outcomes, and differentiating for different forms of flexible working hours. As concerns health, for example, we have some epidemiological evidence on the deleterious effects of night and shift work on fatigue, sleep disturbances, accident risk, cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal disease, as well as on family and social life. But it is also evident that such effects can be strongly influenced by many intervening factors related to several aspects pertaining to different domains, dealing with personal characteristics and coping strategies, as well as with family, social and working conditions. The result of their interactions depends not only on the specific load of each factor, but also on their temporal occurrence and duration in the worker’s life [4]. According to the data of the European Survey 2000, the findings that shift and night work are progressively less frequent with increasing age (Fig. 1), and particularly in women, may reflect the prevalent disadvantages linked to such condition both in terms of biological and social terms.
26
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28 Women
Men 30%
Employed
30%
Employed Self-employed
Self-employed 25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10%
5%
5%
0%
0% 15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
Fig. 1. People working at least 1 night/month.
According to the same dataset, re-analysed in the ambit of a recent SALTSA project on bFlexible Working Hours, Health and Well-beingQ [2], there is some evidence that ageing workers show a higher deterioration of health and well-being, e.g. for heart diseases, stress, fatigue and sleeping problems (Fig. 2), with consequent lower work satisfaction over the years, although a clear bhealthy worker effectQ is often evident in the oldest group. The comparison of two different forms of bflexible working hoursQ, the one more company driven, called bvariabilityQ (defined as bNot working the same number of hours every day, and/or the same number of days every week, and/or at fixed starting and finishing timesQ), the other more individual based, called bflexibilityQ, defined as: bTo able to take breaks when you wish, and/or to be are free to decide when to take holidays or days of, and/or to be able to influence your working hoursQ), showed that they have a different Heart diseases
Stress Women
Men 5%
Employed
5%
Employed
Self-employed
Self-employed
4%
4% 3%
3%
2%
2%
1%
1%
Women
Men 40%
Employed
40%
Employed
35%
Self-employed
35%
Self-employed
30%
30%
25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10% 5%
5% 0%
0% 15-24
25-39
40-54
55+
15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
0%
0% 15-24
25-39
Women
40%
Employed
40%
Employed
35%
Self-employed
35%
Self-employed
25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10%
5% 15-24
25-39
40-54
Age
55+
40-54
55+
Age
12% 11% 10% 9% 8% 7% 6% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0%
0% 15-24
25-39
40-54
Age
Women
Men
5%
0%
25-39
Sleeping problems
Fatigue Men
30%
15-24
55+
Age
Age
30%
40-54
55+
12% 11% 10% 9% 8% 7% 6% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0%
Employed Self-Employed
15-24
25-39
40-54
55+
Employed Self-Employed
15-24
Age
Fig. 2. Health troubles according to age, gender and way of employment.
25-39
40-54
Age
55+
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
27
impact on workers’ conditions: bvariabilityQ can have a negative influence, whereas bflexibilityQ appears as a clear and significant predictor of better health/well-being, in particular for job satisfaction, lack of fatigue and social functioning (Table 2). In an attempt to bring out the independent contributions of flexibility and variability of work hours it turned out that low (individual) flexibility and high variability of work hours (i.e. company based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and wellbeing, while low variability combined with high autonomy were associated with the opposite, positive, effects. We believe that this combination of variability and flexibility may constitute a hitherto unrecognized health related dimension of work organization. Reviewing the available literature on flexible working hours yields a very disappointing state of the art. More than 1000 references were listed, but it was striking that most of these documents were mainly argumentative with very little empirical data. According to Frings-Dresen et al. [5], who carried out a systematic review of the literature (reported in Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cinahl) as concerns the effects of working time and recovery aspects on work ability of older workers, no studies specifically focussed on older workers or used age as independent variable; however there is some evidence that working longer hours is associated with: (a) negative health outcomes both on the short-term (diminished performance, sleep disturbances) and on the longer term (musculoskeletal, sleep and cardiovascular disorders); (b) working compressed working weeks or in a irregular changing schedule is associated with diminished psychological well-being and sleep quality; (c) more control over the amount of working hours and working schedules acts as buffer variable with respect to short-term health reactions of work; one extra day off work time per month increases productivity and quality of working time; (d) having the opportunity for formal and informal breaks is positively associated with level of performance and shortterm health outcomes. Table 2 Prevalence (%) of the main health troubles in relation to the personal conditions of bvariabilityQ and bflexibilityQ of working hours Backache Headaches Stomachache Respiratory difficulties Heart disease Injury Stress Overall fatigue Sleeping problems Anxiety Irritability Health and safety at risk WH fit in not well with family/social commitments Not be able to do the same job when at 60 year old Job dissatisfaction * p b0.001 at v 2 test.
Variable
Fixed
Flexible
Rigid
35.1 15.8 6.3 4.1 2.0 7.8 34.8 25.8 11.5 9.5 11.9 32.1 32.4 46.1 15.6
28.6* 12.7* 3.1* 3.9 0.8* 6.0* 22.9* 20.3* 5.3* 5.4* 7.0* 25.2* 12.5* 42.8* 14.1*
25.9 12.1 3.6 3.1 1.1 4.7 26.5 19.5 6.0 6.6 7.5 23.1 17.2 33.2 8.9
36.6* 18.4* 5.8* 4.7* 1.3 8.0* 31.8* 28.1* 9.6* 8.7* 12.5* 32.6* 24.1* 54.5* 23.5*
28
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
4. Conclusions Taking into consideration the relevant importance of ageing in the working population and the increasing variability of the working hours, it appears necessary to improve urgently our knowledge by addressing the following aspects: (a) to acquire more detailed information and statistics on working hours and the prevalence rates of different kinds of Flexible Working Hours in national and international surveys, as well as according to age groups; (b) to develop methods for the evaluation of the impact of flexible working hours on workers’ conditions, focusing more on human centred outcome variables on health and well-being (long-term effects, more objective assessments); (c) to promote longitudinal studies with adequate time intervals according to the different effects monitored; (d) to support intervention studies with careful control of the effects, and to publish bbest practiceQ examples for such good arrangements of FWH; (e) to analyse better the interactions between work load, working hours and work organisation; (f) to support for individual flexibility, according to ergonomic principles, as a tool for companies to improve their economic efficiency (optimize manning), for improving worker’s autonomy and her/his control on over her/his working conditions, and for improving living conditions and adding social value to the quality of life in general. Acknowledgment The study was funded by the Joint Programme for Working Life Research in Europe (SALTSA), contract no. 2000-10-20. The authors thank Pascal Paoli (EURF) for the dataset of the 3rd EU Survey. References [1] P. Paoli, D. Merllie´, Third European Survey on Working Conditions 2000. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Loughlinstown, Co. Dublin, Ireland, 2001. [2] G. Costa, et al., As time goes by—flexible work hours, health and wellbeing, Working Life Research in Europe Report, vol. 8, The National Institute for Working Life, Stockholm, 2003. [3] A. Goudswaard, M. de Nanteuil, Flexibility and Working Conditions: A Qualitative and Comparative Study in EU Countries, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin, 2000. [4] G. Costa, Factors influencing health and tolerance to shift work, Theor. Issues Ergon. Sci. 4 (2003) 263 – 288. [5] M.H.W. Frings Dresen, J.K. Sluiter, E.M. Meijer, Review on the Effects of Working Time and Recovery Aspects on Work Ability of (Older) Workers, Coronel Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 2001 December.
www.ics-elsevier.com
Flexible work hours, ageing and well-being G. Costa*, S. Sartori Department of Medicine and Public Health, University of Verona, Italy
Abstract. The increasing diversification of working time patterns reflects broader societal reasons, involving social development, economic efficiency and individual preferences. The modern society is changing quite rapidly not only in terms of economic and productive strategies, but mainly in terms of social organisation and individual behaviours and careers, and this is certainly due also to the progressive ageing of the general and working populations. Over the last decades an increasing interest in btemporal flexibilityQ can be observed: that leads, on one hand, to a demand for an increase in the number of hours during which the production is possible (Company-oriented flexibility) and, on the other hand, to a desire for a reduction of individual working hours and/or an increase in the autonomy of their regulation (Individual-oriented flexibility). Also the society is interested in flexible working hours, as many advantages can derive from a more flexible arrangement of social activities and services. According to the results of a recent SALTSA project, longer and irregular working hours are in general associated with lower levels of health and wellbeing. Moreover, low (individual) flexibility and high variability of work hours (that is company based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and well-being, while low variability combined with high autonomy were associated with positive effects. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Working hours; Flexibility; Health; Aging
1. Introduction According to the 3rd EU Survey on Working Conditions, carried out in 2000 in the 15 European countries [1], the so-called bnormalQ or bstandardQ working hours (that is daytime and 5-day weekly work) represent more the exception than the rule: in fact, if we consider the 21,703 workers of the sample, and we eliminate progressively the persons
T Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 45 8027 634; fax: +39 45 8027 633. E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Costa). 0531-5131/ D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ics.2005.02.081
24
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
Table 1 % distribution of weekly working hours (WH) according to age groups, gender and way of employment WH
Self-employed
Employed
Age
b30 30–39 40 N40 b30 30–39 40 N40
Age
15–24
25–39
40–54
55+
13.95 11.63 17.44 54.65 38.24 8.82 11.76 41.18
5.75 16.23 16.11 59.84 15.58 24.38 17.61 39.50
4.68 13.82 18.38 61.42 16.94 19.15 15.10 45.86
11.91 18.89 13.14 51.33 20.31 19.79 15.10 41.67
Men
Women
15–24
25–39
40–54
55+
13.58 32.20 34.19 19.45 30.20 33.57 25.60 9.92
5.08 35.37 35.71 23.22 28.39 39.29 22.99 8.97
4.35 38.38 35.40 21.42 28.89 41.27 20.35 9.05
8.04 34.57 34.81 22.21 30.65 38.39 21.77 8.55
working (a) more than 40 h/week, (b) more than 10 h/day, (c) on shifts, (d) at night, (e) on Sunday, (f) part-time, and (g) on Saturday, we can find that people working on bnormalQ daytime work (i.e. between 7.30–8 AM and 5–6 PM, and from Monday to Friday) are now only 24% of the whole population, in particular 27% of employed and only 8% of selfemployed workers [2]. Significant differences can be also noticed according to gender and age, where overtime for men and the youngest, and part-time work for women and the elder cause the largest differences (Table 1). The increasing diversification of working time patterns reflects broader societal reasons, involving social development, economic efficiency and individual preferences. The modern society is changing quite rapidly not only in terms of economic and productive strategies (e.g. new technologies, market globalisation, information processes), but mainly in terms of social organisation and individual behaviours and careers, and this is certainly due also to the progressive ageing of the general and working populations. 2. Flexibility/variability of working hours There are several approaches and models to define blabour flexibilityQ, depending on the different work, social and personal variables/parameters/perspectives you may take into account. As pointed out by Goudswaard and De Nanteuil [3], bflexibility emerges as a heterogeneous concept, mixing two series of variables, quantitative/qualitative and external/internal, with consequent several possible combinationsQ, which include bnumerical flexibilityQ (e.g. permanent/temporal contracts, work on demand), bgeographical flexibilityQ (e.g. subcontracting, outsourcing), bfunctional flexibilityQ (e.g. job enrichment, team work, project groups), and btemporal flexibilityQ (e.g. night and shift work, part-time, overtime, compressed work week). What we are considering in this paper is the last aspect, but we are aware that the various forms are often strictly linked to each other; consequently, positive or negative consequences, that may derive from different arrangements, are influenced more from their interactions rather than as a direct effect of a single factor. The search for ways and methods suitable for increasing the flexibility of the working systems and, in particular, of working times can include several different interventions both
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
25
in short- and long-term periods according to the temporal scales that one may consider. In practical they can deal with: (a) increasing working hours with higher salary (e.g. daily or weekly overtime, delayed retirement); (b) re-arrangement of the same amount of working hours (e.g. variable start and finishing times, compressed work week, annual bank of hours); (c) reduction of working hours at the same level of salary (e.g. bank of paid leaves, week-end work, early retirement); (d) reduction of working hours with reduced salary (e.g. horizontal and vertical part-time, job sharing); and (e) reduction of working hours with transfer of costs to the community (solidarity contracts, pre-term retirement). The type of intervention depends on the prevailing factors that at different times influence political choices in work and social organization. In the short-term, for example, one may expect that work hours may be altered for limited periods in terms of increased or decreased hours worked per day or week and/or changed position of work hours in order to cope with increasing temporal (seasonal, peak hours, just-in-time production) demands for goods and services, as well as to reduce production costs. In the long-term, the interventions are linked to more complex planning or adjustment of professional career, and to adaptations of working life to living and social conditions, also in the perspective of the progressive ageing of the general and working population. Over the last decades an increasing interest in btemporal flexibilityQ can be observed: that leads, on one hand, to a demand for an increase in the number of hours during which the production is possible (Company-oriented flexibility) and, on the other hand, to a desire for a reduction of individual working hours and/or an increase in the autonomy of their regulation (Individual-oriented flexibility). Also the society is interested in flexible working hours, as many advantages can derive from a more flexible arrangement of social activities and services. 3. Health related problems Although it can be easily speculated that, in general, individual-based bflexibilityQ should improve health and well-being, and especially satisfaction, whereas companybased bflexibilityQ might interfere negatively, the effective consequences on health and well-being have still to be analysed properly, both in general and in relation to ageing, taking into account both subjective and objective criteria and outcomes, and differentiating for different forms of flexible working hours. As concerns health, for example, we have some epidemiological evidence on the deleterious effects of night and shift work on fatigue, sleep disturbances, accident risk, cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal disease, as well as on family and social life. But it is also evident that such effects can be strongly influenced by many intervening factors related to several aspects pertaining to different domains, dealing with personal characteristics and coping strategies, as well as with family, social and working conditions. The result of their interactions depends not only on the specific load of each factor, but also on their temporal occurrence and duration in the worker’s life [4]. According to the data of the European Survey 2000, the findings that shift and night work are progressively less frequent with increasing age (Fig. 1), and particularly in women, may reflect the prevalent disadvantages linked to such condition both in terms of biological and social terms.
26
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28 Women
Men 30%
Employed
30%
Employed Self-employed
Self-employed 25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10%
5%
5%
0%
0% 15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
Fig. 1. People working at least 1 night/month.
According to the same dataset, re-analysed in the ambit of a recent SALTSA project on bFlexible Working Hours, Health and Well-beingQ [2], there is some evidence that ageing workers show a higher deterioration of health and well-being, e.g. for heart diseases, stress, fatigue and sleeping problems (Fig. 2), with consequent lower work satisfaction over the years, although a clear bhealthy worker effectQ is often evident in the oldest group. The comparison of two different forms of bflexible working hoursQ, the one more company driven, called bvariabilityQ (defined as bNot working the same number of hours every day, and/or the same number of days every week, and/or at fixed starting and finishing timesQ), the other more individual based, called bflexibilityQ, defined as: bTo able to take breaks when you wish, and/or to be are free to decide when to take holidays or days of, and/or to be able to influence your working hoursQ), showed that they have a different Heart diseases
Stress Women
Men 5%
Employed
5%
Employed
Self-employed
Self-employed
4%
4% 3%
3%
2%
2%
1%
1%
Women
Men 40%
Employed
40%
Employed
35%
Self-employed
35%
Self-employed
30%
30%
25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10% 5%
5% 0%
0% 15-24
25-39
40-54
55+
15-24
25-39
Age
40-54
55+
0%
0% 15-24
25-39
Women
40%
Employed
40%
Employed
35%
Self-employed
35%
Self-employed
25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10%
5% 15-24
25-39
40-54
Age
55+
40-54
55+
Age
12% 11% 10% 9% 8% 7% 6% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0%
0% 15-24
25-39
40-54
Age
Women
Men
5%
0%
25-39
Sleeping problems
Fatigue Men
30%
15-24
55+
Age
Age
30%
40-54
55+
12% 11% 10% 9% 8% 7% 6% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0%
Employed Self-Employed
15-24
25-39
40-54
55+
Employed Self-Employed
15-24
Age
Fig. 2. Health troubles according to age, gender and way of employment.
25-39
40-54
Age
55+
G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
27
impact on workers’ conditions: bvariabilityQ can have a negative influence, whereas bflexibilityQ appears as a clear and significant predictor of better health/well-being, in particular for job satisfaction, lack of fatigue and social functioning (Table 2). In an attempt to bring out the independent contributions of flexibility and variability of work hours it turned out that low (individual) flexibility and high variability of work hours (i.e. company based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and wellbeing, while low variability combined with high autonomy were associated with the opposite, positive, effects. We believe that this combination of variability and flexibility may constitute a hitherto unrecognized health related dimension of work organization. Reviewing the available literature on flexible working hours yields a very disappointing state of the art. More than 1000 references were listed, but it was striking that most of these documents were mainly argumentative with very little empirical data. According to Frings-Dresen et al. [5], who carried out a systematic review of the literature (reported in Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cinahl) as concerns the effects of working time and recovery aspects on work ability of older workers, no studies specifically focussed on older workers or used age as independent variable; however there is some evidence that working longer hours is associated with: (a) negative health outcomes both on the short-term (diminished performance, sleep disturbances) and on the longer term (musculoskeletal, sleep and cardiovascular disorders); (b) working compressed working weeks or in a irregular changing schedule is associated with diminished psychological well-being and sleep quality; (c) more control over the amount of working hours and working schedules acts as buffer variable with respect to short-term health reactions of work; one extra day off work time per month increases productivity and quality of working time; (d) having the opportunity for formal and informal breaks is positively associated with level of performance and shortterm health outcomes. Table 2 Prevalence (%) of the main health troubles in relation to the personal conditions of bvariabilityQ and bflexibilityQ of working hours Backache Headaches Stomachache Respiratory difficulties Heart disease Injury Stress Overall fatigue Sleeping problems Anxiety Irritability Health and safety at risk WH fit in not well with family/social commitments Not be able to do the same job when at 60 year old Job dissatisfaction * p b0.001 at v 2 test.
Variable
Fixed
Flexible
Rigid
35.1 15.8 6.3 4.1 2.0 7.8 34.8 25.8 11.5 9.5 11.9 32.1 32.4 46.1 15.6
28.6* 12.7* 3.1* 3.9 0.8* 6.0* 22.9* 20.3* 5.3* 5.4* 7.0* 25.2* 12.5* 42.8* 14.1*
25.9 12.1 3.6 3.1 1.1 4.7 26.5 19.5 6.0 6.6 7.5 23.1 17.2 33.2 8.9
36.6* 18.4* 5.8* 4.7* 1.3 8.0* 31.8* 28.1* 9.6* 8.7* 12.5* 32.6* 24.1* 54.5* 23.5*
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G. Costa, S. Sartori / International Congress Series 1280 (2005) 23–28
4. Conclusions Taking into consideration the relevant importance of ageing in the working population and the increasing variability of the working hours, it appears necessary to improve urgently our knowledge by addressing the following aspects: (a) to acquire more detailed information and statistics on working hours and the prevalence rates of different kinds of Flexible Working Hours in national and international surveys, as well as according to age groups; (b) to develop methods for the evaluation of the impact of flexible working hours on workers’ conditions, focusing more on human centred outcome variables on health and well-being (long-term effects, more objective assessments); (c) to promote longitudinal studies with adequate time intervals according to the different effects monitored; (d) to support intervention studies with careful control of the effects, and to publish bbest practiceQ examples for such good arrangements of FWH; (e) to analyse better the interactions between work load, working hours and work organisation; (f) to support for individual flexibility, according to ergonomic principles, as a tool for companies to improve their economic efficiency (optimize manning), for improving worker’s autonomy and her/his control on over her/his working conditions, and for improving living conditions and adding social value to the quality of life in general. Acknowledgment The study was funded by the Joint Programme for Working Life Research in Europe (SALTSA), contract no. 2000-10-20. The authors thank Pascal Paoli (EURF) for the dataset of the 3rd EU Survey. References [1] P. Paoli, D. Merllie´, Third European Survey on Working Conditions 2000. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Loughlinstown, Co. Dublin, Ireland, 2001. [2] G. Costa, et al., As time goes by—flexible work hours, health and wellbeing, Working Life Research in Europe Report, vol. 8, The National Institute for Working Life, Stockholm, 2003. [3] A. Goudswaard, M. de Nanteuil, Flexibility and Working Conditions: A Qualitative and Comparative Study in EU Countries, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin, 2000. [4] G. Costa, Factors influencing health and tolerance to shift work, Theor. Issues Ergon. Sci. 4 (2003) 263 – 288. [5] M.H.W. Frings Dresen, J.K. Sluiter, E.M. Meijer, Review on the Effects of Working Time and Recovery Aspects on Work Ability of (Older) Workers, Coronel Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 2001 December.