Association of work–life balance with occupational injury and work-related musculoskeletal pain among Korean workers

BACKGROUND: The concept of work-life balance (WLB) has become an important issue in workers' health and safety. This study aims to investigate the relationship between WLB and occupational injury and work-related musculoskeletal pain. METHOD: The study included 27,383 workers who participated in the Fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey. Participants were divided into good WLB and poor WLB groups based on their responses to the five question items which comprised two dimensions: work-on-life conflict (items, 1–3) and life-on-work conflict (items 4 and 5). Occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain were also assessed using the question items. The χ(2) test and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship of WLB to occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain while considering socio-demographic and occupational characteristics and ergonomic and psychological risk factors. RESULTS: Of the 27,383 participants, 252 (0.9%) had experienced an occupational injury and 6,408 (23.4%) had musculoskeletal pain. The poor WLB group had higher injury rates for both men (1.7%) and women (0.9%) than the good WLB group (1.1% and 0.4%, respectively). Additionally, the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain was higher for both men and women in the poor WLB group (25.2% and 28.0%, respectively) than for men and women in the good WLB group (18.7% and 23.6%, respectively). In the logistic regression analysis, the adjusted odds ratio of WLB for occupational injury was 1.37 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.06–1.78), and that for musculoskeletal pain was 1.14 (95% CI: 1.07–1.21), showing positive associations of WLB with both occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain. CONCLUSIONS: Poor WLB causes an increase in occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain. Therefore, an improvement in WLB may reduce the incidence of occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain among workers. Social and policy-related initiatives are needed to improve workers' WLB to reduce occupational injury and musculoskeletal pain.