2024/06/25 by Wanying Ling, Senhu Wang, Zhuofei Lu · 1 citation
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Employment and Welfare Studies #Retirement, Disability, and Employment #Workplace Health and Well-being
paper · doi:10.1177/09500170241259330
openalex publication_date 2024/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Despite the well-documented negative impact of working time mismatch on employee subjective well-being, little is known about the extent to which this association can be explained by job quality and how these patterns may differ across institutional contexts. Utilizing panel data from the UK and cross-country data from Europe, the decomposition analyses show that for underemployment, more than half of the negative effects are explained by low job quality, especially poor career prospects. For overemployment, more than a third of its negative effect is explained by low job quality, with poor prospects, social environment and work–life balance being significant contributing factors. This interplay between job quality and working time mismatch on subjective well-being varies notably across different welfare and employment regimes. These findings reveal how job quality dimensions differentially contribute to the well-being of overemployed and underemployed individuals, highlighting the distinctive role of institutional context.