Association of weekly working hours with poor psychological well-being and moderation by employment status in Korean workers

We examined the association of weekly working hours with poor psychological well-being in Korean workers and the moderating effect of employment status. This secondary analysis examined data from the fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey (2017). There were 30,108 waged employees and 14,459 self-employed individuals. The two groups were compared using a moderated regression model with Hayes’ PROCESS macro for SPSS. The self-employed had a greater mean age than the waged employees. Higher percentages of the self-employed had short weekly working hours (<40), excessively long weekly working hours (≥60), and poor psychological well-being. After controlling for age, gender, education, monthly income, and occupational class, the interaction between weekly working hours and employment status on psychological well-being was significant (p<0.001). Among the self-employed, the well-being score was lowest in the short working hour group (<40 h/week), highest in the long working hour (48–59 h/week) groups, and intermediate in the excessively long working hours (≥60 h/week) group. For waged employees, psychological well-being was the greatest in the short working hour group and decreased continuously as the number of weekly working hours increased. In conclusion, employment status (employee vs. self-employed) moderated the relationship between weekly working hours and psychological well-being.