Working time mismatch and job satisfaction – the role of employees’ time autonomy and gender

Abstract

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Work hour mismatches and sickness absence and the moderating role of human resource practices: Evidence from Germany

“…I measured employment status in full-time (⩾30 contractual hours per week) and part-time status (<30 contractual hours per week) (see e.g. Grund and Tilkes, 2023; OECD, 2021b; Pollmann-Schult and Reynolds, 2017; for a different threshold, see e.g. Abrahamsen, 2010; Otterbach et al, 2021).…”

“…Surprisingly, to date the moderating role of working time autonomy has received little attention in research on working time mismatches. However, Grund and Tilkes (2023) recently showed, based on GSOEP data, that working time autonomy can buffer the negative impact of actual overemployment on job satisfaction. Further, the results of a qualitative interview study (Hiemer and Andresen, 2019) suggest that time autonomy can mitigate the negative effects of overemployment on psychological strain.…”

“…Wang and Reid, 2015; Zimmert and Weber, 2021), work hour/working time mismatches (e.g. Grund and Tilkes, 2023; Lepinteur, 2019; Reynolds and Johnson, 2012; Reynolds and McKinzie, 2019; Van Emmerik and Sanders, 2005) or work hour incongruence (e.g. Lee et al, 2015), and partly also under or within terms such as work/ employment status (in)congruence (e.g.…”

“…Further, the issue of overemployment has recently gained renewed attention in Germany’s legislation : Thus, the right to permanent part-time work (TzBfG/ Act on Part-Time Work and Fixed-Term Employment Contracts), which was introduced in 2001 to combat overemployment, was supplemented in 2019 by the right to a temporary reduction of contractual working hours (§9a TzBfG). In research , a large body of work has focused on the negative link between overemployment and health (Bartoll and Ramos, 2020; Bell et al, 2012; De Moortel et al, 2018; Kim et al, 2021; Kuroda and Yamamoto, 2019; Lepinteur, 2019; Miranti and Li, 2020; Otterbach et al, 2021), satisfaction with health (Bell et al, 2012; Matiaske et al, 2017), life satisfaction (Angrave and Charlwood, 2015; Başlevent and Kirmanoğlu, 2014; Bell and Blanchflower, 2019) and job satisfaction (Angrave and Charlwood, 2015; Fabian and Breunig, 2019; Frei and Grund, 2022; Grund and Tilkes, 2023; Kuroda and Yamamoto, 2019; Lee et al, 2015; Pagan, 2017). Others have focused on various job-related outcomes of overemployment or work hour (in)congruence, such as commitment (Abrahamsen, 2010; Odle-Dusseau et al, 2012), turnover (intention) (Boheim and Taylor, 2004; Odle-Dusseau et al, 2012; Sturman and Walsh, 2014), retirement (intention) (Silver et al, 2019; Wöhrmann et al, 2020) or work-life conflict/balance (Brauner et al, 2020; Odle-Dusseau et al, 2012; Skinner and Pocock, 2008; Sturman and Walsh, 2014) – and have found mixed results.…”

“…Finally , only a few studies have dealt with HR instruments that may moderate the effects of overemployment (e.g. De Moortel et al, 2018; Frei and Grund, 2022; Grund and Tilkes, 2023; Van Emmerik and Sanders, 2005), and none have addressed the link between overemployment and absence. Thus, from an employer’s perspective, it remains unclear whether it is justified to rely on standardised (rather than preference-based) working time arrangements, provided that suitable other HR instruments (e.g.…”