Uses of Time

What are the main work-related health problems faced by working people in Barcelona?One of the main problems is mental health disorders, especially disorders such as anxiety and depression: in 2023, 84% of work-related illnesses reported by Primary Care Centres in the Labour Health Unit of Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB) were mental health disorders.

These health problems are observed both in paid work and unpaid domestic and care work. In the first case, they are disorders that are related to the conditions of employment (such as unemployment, the type of employment relationship, the salary, the working day, and the working hours) and to the psychosocial risks of work, which in turn they have to do with how work is organised and the relationships between the working people. In the second case, health problems are associated with the characteristics of domestic work (such as the hours spent and the tasks performed) and care work (such as the time spent, the intensity, the tasks and place where it is carried out, as well as the characteristics of the person cared for).

Musculoskeletal health problems are also common, present both in paid work (in 2023, 63% of occupational illnesses were the cause of leave) and in unpaid work (in 2023, 33% of people who were mainly responsible for care work and 33% of those responsible for domestic work had chronic back pain -cervical, dorsal or lumbar).

Finally, in the field of paid work, we find injuries due to accidents while travelling. They are due to accidents that occur on the journey from home to the workplace and which account for a large part of the total of the most serious injuries due to work accidents (43% of all serious injuries in 2023).

Do you think they could be solved with a different organisation of working time? How?The organisation of working time has a lot to do with the genesis of the health problems I mentioned, and it plays a relevant role in mental health problems.

In the field of remunerated work, the quality of working time should be improved, which has different components, but where the length of the working day and the flexibility of working time would stand out. There is much scientific evidence that very long working hours cause various health problems (such as cardiovascular health problems and mental disorders), but also moderately long working hours, which are much more common in our country (between 41 and 50 hours per week) can hurt mental health, as we have shown in studies carried out by the Public Health Agency of Barcelona.

As for the flexibility of working time, it is worth mentioning as factors with a negative impact on mental health atypical hours (hours that make social life difficult such as working on weekends, holidays or at night), the variability of the working days and hours and the lack of predictability of the day. These different manifestations of working time flexibility are inversely related to mental health and well-being, whether it is flexibility induced by the company or in the case of flexibility related to the decision and autonomy of the person worker

When we talk about work, we must not forget unpaid care and domestic work; How does this work affect the individual and collective health of people?
Indeed, as I said at the beginning, this is a job that has a potential negative impact on people’s health and that is often invisible, perceived as of little value and with little or no impact on people’s health. There is enough scientific evidence that relates this work to mental health problems, physical health problems such as musculoskeletal problems and also health-related behaviours such as lack of physical activity or sleep problems.

From the ASPB we monitor the dedication to unpaid domestic and care work and its impact on the health of the city’s population and we have been observing how people with greater dedication to the same have worse health outcomes. In the latest health and work indicators document, with data from 2023, we have shown that people who are solely responsible for care work and also people who are responsible for domestic work and who dedicate more hours to it, have more mental discomfort, more chronic back pain and more often sleep less than 6 hours a day. On the other hand, people who share the responsibility of both care work and domestic work much less frequently suffer from these health problems. A noteworthy fact of this document is that between 2017 and 2023 the percentage of depression/anxiety in people solely responsible for care work and also in those solely responsible for domestic work has tripled.

Does the workload related to care affect men and women differently? With what consequences?
Women are much more involved in unpaid care work, and in many cases, they must also combine it with paid work. For example, in 2023 in Barcelona, ​​​​among people who were responsible for a dependent person, 29% of women were the only ones responsible for their care, while men were 13%. This greater dedication has a greater impact on their health, both about mental health and musculoskeletal problems such as back pain.

One interesting fact, especially considering possible measures to mitigate the impact on women’s health, is that the differences in health between men and women are reduced when it is the same people with special needs who take care of themselves and also when the care of these people is done in a shared way.

According to the data you have access to, what impact does time poverty have on the health of the citizens of Barcelona? Are there differences by gender, by social class, or by a specific family situation? Which ones?
Time poverty refers to when there is little personal time available due to a disproportionate amount of time related to work (this includes paid work time, commuting to work, unpaid domestic work and unpaid care work). At ASPB we have carried out a study with data from the 2021 Health Survey, from which I highlight three main results related to gender inequalities:

• Women spend more time on unpaid domestic work, care and commuting, while men spend more time on paid work. This means that women spend more total time related to work and consequently have more time poverty.
• Time poverty increases with increasing numbers of children, both in men and women (around 12% of people without children are time-poor vs. 70% of people with more than 2 children).
• In women, time poverty is associated with poorer mental health (women with time poverty have twice as much poor mental health as those without time poverty), fewer hours of sleep, lower quality of sleep and less physical activity in leisure time. In men, there are no differences concerning time poverty and health.

Differences in health outcomes between men and women about time poverty are explained by various sociocultural and structural factors, including the division of gender roles, the performance of more simultaneous activities or multitasking by women; the poorer quality of sleep by women; the less time available for self-care by women; stress due to the pressure of paid work and care in women; the greater ease for men to delegate domestic or care tasks or the insufficient public services to alleviate the unpaid burden on women.

From your point of view, what other measures linked to time use, which can be promoted at an individual or collective level by public and social organisations, can improve the health and well-being of workers in Barcelona?
Action can be taken at many levels, at the individual, company and entity levels, but action in terms of policies is essential.

An example with a great impact on paid work is the 2003 European Directive on the organisation of working time, which regulates key aspects related to the use of paid working time such as the maximum duration of the working day, daily and weekly rest time, breaks, night work and shift work.

Regarding unpaid domestic and care work, there are two basic levels where action can be taken from policies. On the one hand, we see that having children increases time poverty and, therefore, the associated health problems such as poor mental health, the quantity and quality of sleep and lack of physical activity. Thus, all policies that reduce the amount of unpaid care work that people do can improve the health of those who do it. This includes increasing and making kindergartens free, but also policies aimed at encouraging young people to become independent of their mothers and fathers (such as policies to reduce unemployment, increase wages, and facilitate access to housing), policies that act on healthy ageing, so that the time of autonomy of the elderly is extended, as well as policies that increase the provision of care to dependent people.

Other types of policies aim to increase the co-responsibility of care and domestic work. We see that people who share this work have fewer health problems than those who take care of it alone. An example is the current 16-week leave for the birth and care of a child for both parents, non-transferable and 100% paid. The leave must be taken simultaneously for the first 6 weeks, and alternating the remaining 10 weeks is encouraged. This organisation also contributes to increasing the bond between father and son and encourages the continuity of paid work for mothers.

How do you assess the impact of projects promoted by public administrations to promote a new collaborative organisation of time, such as the Time Agreement or the NUST Network – Network of companies for a new working time?
As I said, actions must be taken at all levels that can have an impact on changing the use of time towards healthier models. In this sense, both initiatives are positive and I particularly value the collaborative component. Regarding the NUST Network, for example, I highly value the fact that it shares many practices that the member companies have been developing over the years and that can be very useful for other companies interested in implementing similar actions. If I had to add something, I would say that it would be very useful to be able to evaluate these practices concerning different results, especially in the impact on the health and well-being of workers.