Extended working hours and health

Statistical analyses of the relation between the amount of working hours and impairments to health, based on data from a European survey on working conditions in 2000, clearly reveal that there is a substantial correlation between the number of working hours per week and the frequencies of health complaints. This applies to both musculo-skeletal disorders as well as to psycho-vegetative complaints. The relationship of the duration of the exposure to working conditions to health impairments is moderated by a great number of individual (e.g., age) and situational (e.g., shift-work) variables, showing additive or interactive effects for which selected examples have been presented. In general, however, there is a consistent functional relationship between the number or working hours and their effects on the workers that holds over a great variety of conditions. It is argued that requests for extending working hours should thus be handled with care.