Abstract
Studies have indicated the importance of family life and psychosocial working conditions for mental wellbeing. More recently, studies have highlighted that a good balance between work and family is crucial for good mental wellbeing. However, few studies compare the relative importance of these factors for mental wellbeing. The main aim of this study was to analyse the relative importance of psychosocial working conditions, family conditions and work/family conflict for mental wellbeing. The analyses are based on a Swedish data set, including questions regarding working life, family life and mental wellbeing. A total of 12,461 married/cohabiting individuals employed in Swedish organisations were included in the study. Results show that psychosocial working conditions, family conditions and work/family conflict all were related to mental wellbeing. In the final regression model, the strongest correlation was found between mental wellbeing and the variables work/family conflict, satisfaction with private life and partner relationship, with work/family conflict appearing to be of greatest importance. These findings highlight the necessity of including measurements of work/family conflict when studying the importance of work and family conditions for individual mental wellbeing. For workplace health promotion and improvement, it may be beneficial to consider not only psychosocial working conditions, but also family conditions, and particularly work/life conflict.
Highlights
Mental wellbeing is recognised as an important health indicator in research and policy debates [1], since it reflects a person’s overall evaluation of their quality of life, happiness and satisfaction [2]
This study found that psychosocial working conditions, family conditions and work/family conflict were significantly related to mental wellbeing in married/cohabiting employees
Managers and co-workers together should analyse the status of psychosocial working conditions, work/family conflict and family conditions at their workplaces and, based on such analyses, implement holistic workplace health promotion measures which incorporate all three areas
Summary
Mental wellbeing is recognised as an important health indicator in research and policy debates [1], since it reflects a person’s overall evaluation of their quality of life, happiness and satisfaction [2]. Psychosocial working conditions and family conditions are two life domains that have an impact on mental wellbeing. Many studies have shown that good psychosocial working conditions are essential for psychological health and mental wellbeing [7]. Data shows that around 25 percent of European workers experience work-related stress most of the time, and report that stress has a negative effect on their mental wellbeing [9]. In Sweden, around 65 percent of employees reported that a heavy workload was the main cause of work-related ill-health and reduced mental
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