Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20758
Title: Contemporary contestations over working time: time for health to weigh in
Contributor(s): Dixon, Jane (author); Carey, Gemma (author); Strazdins, Lyndall (author); Banwell, Cathy (author); Woodman, Dan (author); Burgess, John (author); Bittman, Michael  (author); Venn, Danielle (author); Sargent, Ginny (author)
Publication Date: 2014
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-1068Open Access Link
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20758
Abstract: Background: Non-communicable disease (NCD) incidence and prevalence is of central concern to most nations, along with international agencies such as the UN, OECD, IMF and World Bank. As a result, the search has begun for 'causes of the cause' behind health risks and behaviours responsible for the major NCDs. As part of this effort, researchers are turning their attention to charting the temporal nature of societal changes that might be associated with the rapid rise in NCDs. From this, the experience of time and its allocation are increasingly understood to be key individual and societal resources for health (7-9). The interdisciplinary study outlined in this paper will produce a systematic analysis of the behavioural health dimensions, or 'health time economies' (quantity and quality of time necessary for the practice of health behaviours), that have accompanied labour market transitions of the last 30 years - the period in which so many NCDs have risen sharply. Methods/Design: The study takes a mixed-methods approach to capture and explain the relationships between work time and health behaviours. It combines: longitudinal analysis of temporal organisation of work in Australia, with the goal of establishing associations between labour timescapes and health behaviours and health time economies; an in-depth qualitative investigation of employee experiences of the perceived impact of their labour timescapes on 'health time economies'; and, a stakeholder analysis, will uncover whether, how and why (or why not) stakeholders consider health an important dimension- of work and industrial relations policy, and what efforts are being made to mitigate health impacts of work. Discussion: The study posits that time is a key mechanism through which particular forms of labour market policies impact health. The labour market flexibility agenda appears to be operating as a time re-distributive device: it has supported the removal of regulations that governed 'the when' of working time and removed limits over the amount of working time, thus extending by many hours the notion of the 'standard' working week and forcing employees to adapt their shared or social times as well as their time for health.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: BMC Public Health, v.14, p. 1-8
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd
Place of Publication: United Kingdom
ISSN: 1471-2458
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 160702 Counselling, Welfare and Community Services
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 440902 Counselling, wellbeing and community services
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 929999 Health not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 200201 Determinants of health
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

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