Explanations for the negative impact of the work hour mismatch on life satisfaction

Research (e.g. Wooden, Warren & Drago, 2009) has shown that a mismatch between how long people actually work and how long they would prefer to work is negatively correlated with life satisfaction. In this work, it is argued that the impact of these mismatches on life satisfaction can be traced back to their underlying causes, e.g. a poor work-life balance, and that research and policy should address these underlying causes instead of these mismatches themselves. We focus on the biggest group of those who experience a mismatch: those who indicate that they would like to work fewer hours. The data used in this study was collected in 2016 in Flanders, the largest of three Belgian regions, as part of the annual LEVO survey. Our sample consists of 771 working people aged between 18 and 65. Based on several job-related questions, a measure for work-life balance was constructed using factor analysis. Using regression analysis, we find that those who experience a mismatch are, as literature suggests, indeed less satisfied with their lives. However, after including work-life balance into our regressions this significant effect disappears. This finding is consistently replicated in different subgroups. In these subgroups we differentiate between people based on gender, age, having children or not and being high or low educated. Our results thus suggest that decreases in work hours will only be beneficial for life satisfaction when these also improve work-life balance