Men in the study tended to work longer hours than the women, with almost half working longer than 35-40 hours, which was used in the study as the benchmark of a “standard” working week. Less than a quarter of women worked over the standard week hours, and half worked part time (compared to only 15% of men). Among men, working even the longest hours hours wasn’t associated with any significant increase in depressive symptoms, measured using a health questionnaire designed to study psychological distress.
The researchers took into account other factors, including education level, marital status, the physicality of people’s jobs, chronic illness, and whether the subjects had children. Though it’s not touched on in this study, women with children are more likely to choose part-time work—often to the detriment of career and pay progression—while their male partners tend to work full-time, which accounts for some of that asymmetry. The UCL study found that if women were married and had children, they were less likely to work very long hours, while men in the same situation were more likely to.
Over two-thirds of the men and half the women worked weekends. Working weekends did have an effect on men’s wellbeing, but only when other factors were accounted for. Men with “poor psychosocial working conditions”—for example, being unhappy with their pay or their job—who also worked weekends were significantly more likely to be depressed than the rest of the population.
The researchers hypothesized that women who work very long hours might be working in male-dominated industries, while those working weekends were likely to be engaged in low-paid and arduous jobs like working on public transport, cleaning, and care-giving.
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