Examining the relation between part-time work and happiness in dual-earner couples from a life course perspective: incorporating individual, couple and country characteristics
Research relating work hours to well-being has generated equivocal results: some find that working fulltime is related to greater happiness, while others find that those who work parttime are happier. Both findings may be true – linkages between work hours and well-being might differ depending on individual, couple and country characteristics. We use a life course perspective and focus on people’s gender, the presence and age of children, the partner’s work hours, and the country’s norms and policies. Furthermore, this paper is the first to explicitly test the key explanations for the relation between work hours and happiness. We analyze data from the 2012 module of the ISSP, in combination with country-level data from the OECD’s Family Database. Women are happier working part-time, while men are happier working fulltime. Both men and women are happier with a part-time working partner. These effects pertain only to people with school age children and not to childless people or those with preschool age children. Fulltime working fathers are happier partly because they adhere to gender role prescriptions. Norms and policies do not shape the relation between work hours and happiness. The current paper stresses that how work hours affect well-being is dependent on people’s life course context. Whether individuals are happier working fulltime or part-time depends on their gender, their parental status and the work hours of their partner. Furthermore, future studies should consider gendered explanations as our study provides tentative evidence that different mechanisms underlie the relation for men and women
