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

• Published in: Annals of occupational and environmental medicine Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 38 - 7
• Main Authors: Yang, Jae Won, Suh, Chunhui, Lee, Chae Kwan, Son, Byung Chul
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) BioMed Central Ltd 05.06.2018; XMLink, Co; BioMed Central; Korean Society of Occupational & Environmental Medicine; 대한직업환경의학회
• Subjects: Age; Autonomy; Cohabitation; Confidence intervals; Earnings; Gender; Goodness of fit; Job satisfaction; KWCS; Mental depression; Mental health; Objectives; Poisson density functions; Population; Psychological aspects; Psychosocial well-being; Public health; Robustness (mathematics); Statistical analysis; Stress; Well being; WHO-5 index; Work hours; Workers; Working conditions; Working hours; Work–life balance; 예방의학; South Korea; Work–life balance; Psychosocial well-being; WHO-5 index; KWCS
• ISSN: 2052-4374; 2052-4374
• DOI: 10.1186/s40557-018-0250-z

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. 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. 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 ≥ 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). Work-life balance was associated with psychosocial well-being after adjusting for both work-related and individual characteristics.