Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2019 Jun 13;16(12):2102.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16122102.

The Effect of Long Working Hours and Overtime on Occupational Health: A Meta-Analysis of Evidence from 1998 to 2018

Kapo Wong  1 , Alan H S Chan  2 , S C Ngan  3
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The Effect of Long Working Hours and Overtime on Occupational Health: A Meta-Analysis of Evidence from 1998 to 2018

Kapo Wong et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

There has been no subsequent meta-analysis examining the effects of long working hours on health or occupational health since 1997. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a meta-analysis covering studies after 1997 for a comparison. A total of 243 published records were extracted from electronic databases. The effects were measured by five conditions, namely, physiological health (PH), mental health (MH), health behaviours (HB), related health (RH), and nonspecified health (NH). The overall odds ratio between long working hours and occupational health was 1.245 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.195-1.298). The condition of related health constituted the highest odds ratio value (1.465, 95% CI: 1.332-1.611). The potential moderators were study method, cut-point for long weekly working hours, and country of origin. Long working hours were shown to adversely affect the occupational health of workers. The management on safeguarding the occupational health of workers working long hours should be reinforced.

Keywords: health behaviours; mental health; occupational health; occupational injury; physiological health; sleep disturbance; working class.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of the study selection process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Funnel plot of precision by log odds ratio of long working hours on occupational health. Hollow circles are original data and solid circles are imputed data after adjustment for publication bias. (a) Physiological health, (b) mental health, (c) related health.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Funnel plot of precision by log odds ratio of long working hours on occupational health. Hollow circles are original data and solid circles are imputed data after adjustment for publication bias. (a) Physiological health, (b) mental health, (c) related health.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. WHO . Occupational Health: A Manual for Primary Health Care Workers. WHO; Geneva, Switzerland: 2001.
    1. Lee S., McCann D., Messenger J.C. Working Time Around the World. Trend in Working Hours, Laws and Policies in a Global Comparative Perspective. International Labour Office; Geneva, Switzerland: 2007.
    1. Bannai A., Tamakoshi A. The association between long working hours and health: A systematic review of epidemiological evidence. Scand. J. Work Environ. Health. 2014;40:5–18. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.3388. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Liu Y., Tanaka H. Overtime work, insufficient sleep, and risk of non-fatal acute myocardial infarction in Japanese men. Occup. Environ. Med. 2002;59:447–451. doi: 10.1136/oem.59.7.447. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sparks K., Cooper C., Fried Y., Shirom A. The effects of hours of work on health: A meta-analytic review. J. Occup. Organ. Psychol. 1997;70:391–408. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8325.1997.tb00656.x. - DOI

Publication types