In a fast-paced world where work schedules extend beyond the traditional 9-5 framework, the importance of quality sleep cannot be overstated. But sleep, a cornerstone of our overall health and well-being, is increasingly compromised by atypical work patterns with knock-on consequences for people’s health, productivity and the economy. As part of her PhD, Gill Weston from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL undertook a comprehensive study delving into the links between atypical work schedules and sleep duration and quality among a diverse group of over 25,000 individuals ..read more

A new handbook with key contributions from members and associates of ICLS examines recent developments in research on the relationship between work and health and considers the policy implications of these developments. In this blog Tarani Chandola, one of the handbook’s authors, argues Covid has highlighted a need for robust understanding of how long-term exposure to different environmental factors can deepen inequalities in a crisis. A pandemic may look like a sudden event, with little relationship to what went before it. But Covid has shown us otherwise – the conditions in which people live ..read more

France has long been known as a country where working parents are supported, with good family benefits and leave entitlements. But how good is the mental health of women who had full-time careers while bringing up a family in France? In this blog, Constance Beaufils of the National Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris describes new research which looks at how French women feel later in life and which finds these policies seem to favour a sense of wellbeing. Research in many countries has shown single mothers and those whose careers are interrupted by child-rearing can suffer from poor we ..read more

The UK government has set out strategies to help families recover from COVID-19, prioritising re-engaging pupils in school, supporting parents into employment and helping families access mental health support. But were parents adversely affected by the pandemic – and if so, which parents suffered most? Boqing Chen and colleagues from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health at University College London looked at Millennial parents and found some fathers were hit particularly hard compared their peers wi ..read more

As part of its levelling up agenda, the UK Government has set itself an ambitious target to add five additional healthy years to the average UK lifespan by 2035. In this blog Dr Emily Murray from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London highlights lessons from the Health in Older People in Places project (HOPE), which she leads. HOPE uses data from the ONS Longitudinal Study to showing the link between levels of employment and health in a place. We know place matters when working to extend healthy life expectancy (HLE) – there are large inequalities in olde ..read more

A recently-launched Parliamentary inquiry is asking if policy needs to be changed to deal with the personal impact of night time or shift work. So how do unsocial working hours affect parents? Afshin Zilanawala from the University of Southampton and Anne McMunn from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at University College London discuss research which finds shift work that working non standard schedules (nights, evenings, weekends) can impact negatively on fathers’ mental health – though it also enables them to spend more time parenting. Five years ago, the Taylor Review of W ..read more

Extending people’s working lives has become a well-established policy in many parts of Europe as governments seek to reduce state pension costs in the context of growing ageing populations. But there are concerns about the health of older workers and what poor health among workers might mean for sickness absence rates and social security costs. New research looking at working longer and sickness absence rates suggests that it might be possible to raise the retirement age without increasing sickness absence rates and social security costs unduly, but the researchers also raise concerns about wi ..read more

In October 2020, WorkLife featured research  from Baowen Xue and Anne McMunn showing how badly the pandemic was affecting the mental health of working parents, especially single mothers. The researchers expressed concerns over the reversal of pre-pandemic trends towards a more gender equal society and supported calls from the Women’s Budget Group for a care-led recovery. Now a team of researchers from the University of Bristol-led Equal Lives project has gone on to look at the way domestic work was shared during and after lockdown in 2020. Susan Harkness from the University of Bristol and ..read more

Extending people’s working lives has become a well-established policy in many parts of Europe as governments seek to reduce state pension costs in the context of growing ageing populations. But there are concerns about the health of older workers and what poor health among workers might mean for sickness absence rates and social security costs. New research looking at working longer and sickness absence rates suggests that it might be possible to raise the retirement age without increasing sickness absence rates and social security costs unduly, but the researchers also raise concerns about wi ..read more

In October 2020, WorkLife featured research  from Baowen Xue and Anne McMunn showing how badly the pandemic was affecting the mental health of working parents, especially single mothers. The researchers expressed concerns over the reversal of pre-pandemic trends towards a more gender equal society and supported calls from the Women’s Budget Group for a care-led recovery. Now a team of researchers from the University of Bristol-led Equal Lives project has gone on to look at the way domestic work was shared during and after lockdown in 2020. Susan Harkness from the University of Bristol and ..read more