Quality Trumps Quantity: Exploring Relationships between Job Quality, Job Quantity, and Sleep

Abstract Background Despite ample research on the relationship between work and sleep, little is known about the relative importance of each job quality dimension for sleep quality and whether the relationship in contingent on job quantity (i.e., working hours). Drawing on a unified analytic framework of job quality and job quantity, this study aims to investigate the interactive relationship between job quality and job quantity and their impact on sleep quality. Method Our analytical sample comprises of 11,066 men and 13,416 women, between the ages of 18 and 65, extracted from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. Cases with missing key values are removed from the sample to ensure data integrity. We apply country-level fixed effects models to examine the association between job quantity, job quality, and sleep quality. Results Our findings suggest that while working hours or working time mismatch have a weak association with sleep quality, job quality has a more significant impact on sleep quality, with different dimensions playing varying roles. Most favorable job characteristics (e.g., low work intensity, good physical environment, meaningful work) are linked to better sleep quality. In contrast, high skill and discretion is associated with poorer sleep quality. Furthermore, the importance of most job quality indices remains even when people work shorter hours or feel under-employed, highlighting the continued importance of job quality for wellbeing in the global trend of a shorter working week. Conclusion By adopting multidimensional concepts of job quantity and job quality, the findings have practical implications for labor market policies and the creation of a supportive workplace environment that fosters better sleep quality and mental health for employees. This may lead to more effective policies to address work-related stress and promote a favorable work-life balance.