Constrained choices? Linking employees' and spouses' work time to health behaviors

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.015

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 126, February 2015, Pages 99-109

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.015 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Fast food consumption is affected by men's work hours in a nonlinear way.
•
Neo-traditional arrangements promote men's but constrain women's ability to engage in exercise.
•
Different health behaviors may have distinct antecedents.
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Schedule control of one partner expands the choices of the other, but in a gendered way.

Abstract

There are extensive literatures on work conditions and health and on family contexts and health, but less research asking how a spouse or partners' work conditions may affect health behaviors. Drawing on the constrained choices framework, we theorized health behaviors as a product of one's own time and spouses' work time as well as gender expectations. We examined fast food consumption and exercise behaviors using survey data from 429 employees in an Information Technology (IT) division of a U.S. Fortune 500 firm and from their spouses. We found fast food consumption is affected by men's work hours—both male employees' own work hours and the hours worked by husbands of women respondents—in a nonlinear way. The groups most likely to eat fast food are men working 50 h/week and women whose husbands work 45–50 h/week. Second, exercise is better explained if work time is conceptualized at the couple, rather than individual, level. In particular, neo-traditional arrangements (where husbands work longer than their wives) constrain women's ability to engage in exercise but increase odds of men exercising. Women in couples where both partners are working long hours have the highest odds of exercise. In addition, women working long hours with high schedule control are more apt to exercise and men working long hours whose wives have high schedule flexibility are as well. Our findings suggest different health behaviors may have distinct antecedents but gendered work-family expectations shape time allocations in ways that promote men's and constrain women's health behaviors. They also suggest the need to expand the constrained choices framework to recognize that long hours may encourage exercise if both partners are looking to sustain long work hours and that work resources, specifically schedule control, of one partner may expand the choices of the other.

Section snippets

Work hours in relation to fast food consumption and exercise: mixed findings

Previous studies on work hours and health-related outcomes have been focused on workers' own work hours, with Kleiner and Pavalko (2010) providing one of the most nuanced views of these patterns. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, Kleiner and Pavalko found a curvilinear relationship between work time and health: greater-than-standard work hours (41–59) predicted lower levels of mental and physical health, but workers reporting extremely long hours (>59) did not report

Spouses' work time in relation to respondents' fast food consumption and exercise

There is little research on the effects of spousal employment and work hours on respondents' health behaviors, but more research on the effect of spousal employment and work hours on self-reported health. A nationally representative study showed that having an employed spouse was linked to better health (Kleiner and Pavalko, 2010). But this association could differ by gender. Given that paid work is tightly linked to masculinity, and that men are still expected to be breadwinners (Moen and

Couple's work arrangements in relation to respondents' fast food consumption and exercise

Following Clarkberg and Moen (2001), we conceptualize work time as a couple-level construct. We distinguish five substantively meaningful types of couples: (1) respondent sole breadwinner (spouse not working), (2) respondent primary breadwinner (respondent long hours, spouse fewer hours), (3) spouse primary breadwinner (spouse long hours, respondent fewer hours), (4) moderate commitments (both lower hours, <45 h/week), and (5) high commitments (both long hours, ≥45 h/week). Note we define

Schedule control as a buffer between long work hours and poor health behaviors

The extent to which each additional work hour crowds out health-promoting behaviors may depend on both respondents' and their spouses' degree of control over their work schedules. Previous research found greater control over work time resulted in increased health behaviors such as more exercise and higher perceived time for healthy meals (Moen et al., 2013a). We theorize schedule control as a couple-level resource that buffers the potential unhealthy effects of extended work hours, given that a

Sample

We draw on data from the Work, Family & Health Network Study, an interdisciplinary study designed to examine the impact of workplace practices and policies on work, family life, and health outcomes (King et al., 2013). Computer-assisted personal interviews were collected in the IT division of a U.S. Fortune 500 workplace we call TOMO (pseudonym). Of the 1182 employees invited, 823 (70%) completed face-to-face interviews administered by trained field interviewers. Spouses and cohabiting partners

Descriptive results

Table 1 presents background characteristics for the married IT employees. As noted, we refer to those in the IT sample as “respondents” (often specifying women or men) and their spouses/partners as “husbands” or “wives.” Sixty-eight percent of the partnered IT workers are men and the mean age is 46. Most are non-Hispanic White (68%). A third (33%) have no children living at home, while 23% have at least one preschooler. Almost a quarter provides care for infirm adults (22%), with more women

Discussion

This paper takes advantage of couple data including survey data from employee respondents of an IT workforce and their spouses to test whether employees' decisions as to exercise or eat fast food are made in light of their own and their spouses' work hours and flexibility. Understanding the role of work time and the coupled aspects of employees' diet and exercise behavior is an important step towards the prevention of conditions such as obesity and the promotion of a healthy workforce.

What are

Acknowledgments

Special acknowledgement goes to Extramural Staff Science Collaborator, Rosalind Berkowitz King, PhD and Lynne Casper, PhD for design of the original Workplace, Family, Health and Well-Being Network Initiative. Our thanks to the TOMO managers and employees who participated in the study and facilitated our research; to Rachel Magennis, Kimberly Fox, Holly Whitesides, and Laurie Pasricha for facilitating data collection and conducting field research; and to Sarah Kalsbeek and Leslie Erickson of

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This hypothesis should be tested in future studies, as evidence suggests that overall family support is an antecedent of WtoFE (Jain & Nair, 2017), and that instrumental family support may explain other characteristics of food consumption reported by these families, such as the higher frequency of consumption of home-made foods, and the low frequency of consumptions of ready-made meals. These patterns of consumption have been associated with a healthy diet, and with a higher balance between work and home obligations in working individuals (Fan et al., 2015; Pagnan et al., 2017). Positive associations between WtoFE and the perception of the AFM were proposed in Hypothesis 4, which was twofold (direct partner effects).
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When job demands are high and job control or decision latitude is low, work is especially stressful and detrimental to health and coping behaviors related to substance use and misuse (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Kleiner and Pavalko, 2010; Ng and Feldman, 2008; Pfeffer, 2018; Virtanen et al., 2015, 2018). The second pathway, time constraints, focuses on how work hours structure time and lifestyles (Fan et al., 2015; Kleiner et al., 2015; Virtanen and Kivimäki, 2018). Working longer hours generally limits opportunities for leisure and healthy behaviors by contributing to time scarcity (Schor, 2010).
This study contributes to interdisciplinary research on the social and environmental determinants of population health, with a focus on the interaction between working hours and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) concentration. The authors estimate longitudinal models of the relationship between US state-level average life expectancy and both average working hours and PM_2.5 concentration for the 2005–2014 period. Results obtained from two-way fixed effects models indicate that average life expectancy is negatively associated with both average working hours and fine particulate matter concentration. Findings also indicate clear moderating relationships: the negative association between life expectancy and working hours is amplified as PM_2.5 concentration increases, and the negative relationship between life expectancy and fine particulate matter concentration is amplified when average working hours increase. The results of this study underscore the need for additional research on the multiplicative impacts of socioeconomic factors and environmental factors in the modeling of population health.
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On one end are professionals who put in long hours, often because their jobs require it, while on the other end are occupations where the number of people wanting more hours outnumbers those wanting fewer hours (Reynolds, 2003). On the control side, schedule control has become key in facilitating workers' ability to mesh work with other aspects of life (Fan et al., 2015; Kelly et al., 2014; Moen et al., 2016), even as lower-end jobs still require rigid work schedules. Given the rising time demands on the job, supervisory support for family and personal life has become more important than ever for workers (Hammer, Ernst Kossek, Bodner, & Crain, 2013); its provision, nevertheless, may be uneven across organizations.
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Constrained choices? Linking employees' and spouses' work time to health behaviors

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Work hours in relation to fast food consumption and exercise: mixed findings

Spouses' work time in relation to respondents' fast food consumption and exercise

Couple's work arrangements in relation to respondents' fast food consumption and exercise

Schedule control as a buffer between long work hours and poor health behaviors

Sample

Descriptive results

Discussion

Acknowledgments

Adv. Life Course Res.

Soc. Sci. Med.

Soc. Sci. Med.

J. Nutr. Educ. Behav.

Prev. Med.

Soc. Sci. Med.

Soc. Sci. Med.

J. Am. Diet. Assoc.

Soc. Sci. Res.

Understanding the relationship of long working hours with health status and health-related behaviours

J. Epidemiol. Community Health

Health & Lifestyles

Is anyone doing the housework? Trends in the gender division of household labor

Soc. Forces

Gender and Health: the Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies

When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work

Am. J. Sociol.

Hours of work and gender identity: does part-time work make the family happier?

Economica

Reinforcing separate spheres the effect of spousal overwork on men's and women's employment in dual-earner households

Am. Sociol. Rev.

Overwork and the slow convergence in the gender gap in wages

Am. Sociol. Rev.

Barriers to physical activity and socioeconomic position: implications for health promotion

J. Epidemiol. Community Health

Understanding the time-squeeze married couples' preferred and actual work-hour strategies

Am. Behav. Sci.

Overtime work and wellbeing at home

Rev. Soc. Econ.

Social inequalities and exercise during adulthood: toward an ecological perspective

J. Health Soc. Behav.

Fast food and take-away food consumption are associated with different lifestyle characteristics

J. Hum. Nutr. Diet.

Overworked individuals or overworked families? Explaining trends in work, leisure, and family time

Work Occup.

The Time Divide: Work, Family, and Gender Inequality

Screening for serious mental illness in the general population

Arch. Gen. Psychiatry

Opting out and buying out: wives' earnings and housework time

J. Marriage Fam.