Quality Trumps Quantity: Exploring Relationships between Job Quality, Job Quantity, and Sleep

Abstract

Despite ample research on the relationship between work and sleep, little is known about the relative importance of each job quality dimension for sleep quality and whether the relationship in contingent on job quantity (i.e., working hours). Drawing on a unified analytic framework of job quality and job quantity, this study aims to investigate the interactive relationship between job quality and job quantity and their impact on sleep quality using the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. Our findings suggest that whereas working hours have a weak association with sleep quality, job quality has a more significant impact on sleep quality, with different dimensions playing varying roles. Most favorable job characteristics (e.g., low work intensity, good physical environment, high working time quality) are linked to better sleep quality. In contrast, high skill and discretion is associated with poorer sleep quality. Furthermore, the importance of most job quality indices remains even when people work shorter hours, highlighting the continued importance of job quality for well-being in the global trend of a shorter working week.