Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2018 Mar;72(3):244-251. doi: 10.1136/jech-2017-209847. Epub 2017 Dec 22.
There is limited evidence of the impact of policies to promote work-family balance on family health. Exploiting the introduction of the UK Flexible Working Act (2003), we examined whether a policy that grants parents flexible work influences their health and well-being.
Using the UK Millennium Cohort Study, we focus on 6424 mothers employed in 2001-2002, when the cohort child was 9 months old, until their child's seventh birthday. We used a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to compare changes in outcomes before and after the policy among mothers most likely to benefit and mothers unlikely to benefit from the policy.
Flexible working increased in a small group of mothers (n=548) whose employer did not offer work flexibility before the reform (treatment group). By contrast, among mothers whose employer already offered flexible work before the reform (control group, n=5810), there was little change or a slight decline in flexible working. DiD estimates suggest that the policy was associated with an increase in flexible working (37.5 percentage points, 95% CI 32.9 to 41.6), but it had no impact on self-rated health (-1.6 percentage points, 95% CI -4.4 to 1.1), long-term illness (-1.87 percentage points, 95% CI -4.3 to 0.5) or life satisfaction scores (β=0.04, 95% CI -0.08 to 0.16).
The Flexible Working Act increased flexible working only among a small group of mothers who had not yet the right to request work flexibility, but it had no impact on their health and well-being. Policies promoting work flexibility may require stronger incentives for both parents and employers.
目前有关促进工作与家庭平衡政策对家庭健康影响的证据有限。本研究利用英国《2003 年灵活工作法案》（Flexible Working Act）的出台，检验了赋予父母灵活工作权利的政策是否会影响其健康和幸福感。
我们使用英国千禧年队列研究（UK Millennium Cohort Study），聚焦于 2001-2002 年就业且其子女 9 个月大的 6424 名母亲，直至其子女 7 岁。我们采用差分法（difference-in-differences approach），比较政策出台前后最有可能和最不可能从政策中受益的母亲的结局变化。
在改革前没有提供工作灵活性的一小部分母亲（n=548，治疗组）中，灵活工作的比例有所增加。相比之下，在改革前已经提供灵活工作的母亲（对照组，n=5810）中，灵活工作的比例几乎没有变化或略有下降。差分法估计表明，该政策与灵活工作的增加有关（37.5 个百分点，95%置信区间 32.9 至 41.6），但对自我报告的健康状况（-1.6 个百分点，95%置信区间 -4.4 至 1.1）、长期患病（-1.87 个百分点，95%置信区间 -4.3 至 0.5）或生活满意度评分（β=0.04，95%置信区间 -0.08 至 0.16）没有影响。
《灵活工作法案》仅增加了一小部分尚未有权要求工作灵活性的母亲的灵活工作机会，但对其健康和幸福感没有影响。促进工作灵活性的政策可能需要为父母和雇主双方提供更强的激励。
