• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.46-55
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• 2022

Objectives Many studies have reported noticeable increases in the proportion of employees working either relatively short or relatively long hours. Such trends have been accompanied by an increasing concern that how much subjective mental well-being of employees would be influenced by their hours of work. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between work hours and clinically relevant depressive symptoms with demographic variables adjusted. Methods Participants were employees of a total of 56 private companies and local government organizations in Korea, aged 19 to 65 years. A self-report questionnaire that included items on working hour, job stress, levels of depression, and socio-demographic factors was administered to 15360 Korean employees, with 14477 valid responses. Hierarchical linear regression analyses, adjusted for sociodemographic factors, job related demographic factors, job stress, were used additionally to estimate the association between working hours and depressive scores. Results We found that working more than 40 hours per week correlated positively with the level of depressive symptoms after adjusting for demographic variables and the level of job stress. Furthermore, working 40 or fewer hours per week correlated negatively with the level of depressive symptoms. Being younger (β = -0.078, β = -0.099), being a female (β = 2.770, β = 1.268), and possessing a lower level of education (β = -0.315, β = -1.125) were significantly associated with higher level of depressive symptoms in all respondents. Conclusions Both of working excessively long or short hours is significantly associated with the prevalence of depressive symptoms. Establishing proper office hours for employees is critical to improving the quality of working conditions and maintaining good mental health in the workplace.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.75-88
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• 2019

This study focuses on changes in a father's role from one that is work-centered to a work-family balance, analyzing the type of father's work-family reconciliation and to compare the differences among the types. An online survey was conducted with 1,037 fathers of school-aged children. The survey subjects were assigned to a ratio of 1:2:1:1 for fathers who have a child in kindergarten, elementary school, middle school and high school. The fathers' work-family reconciliation type was a variable composed of three categories: work-centered, family-centered, and work-family centered. In the research model of this study, the fathers' work-family reconciliation type was influenced by family characteristics(the age of first child, the number of children, dual earner, and spouse support) and work characteristics(weekly working hours, work flexibility, and leaving work on time). We analyzed characteristics of work-family reconciliation through housework time, child care time, leisure time, family meals, and time spend talking with their children. The results showed that father's work-family reconciliation type was significantly different according to the characteristics such as first child age and spouse support, work characteristics such as weekly working hours and leaving work on time. The time distribution differed significantly depending on the father's work-family reconciliation type. Therefore, a fathers' work-family reconciliation can be considered typified by the interaction of family and work characteristics. This study suggests policy implications for supporting fathers' work-family reconciliation.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.41 no.7
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• pp.157-168
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• 2003

The purposes of this study were to explore the rural women's labor by measuring labor value economically. To achieve the purpose, this study applied four methods : replacement cost method individual function, replacement cost method generalist, opportunity cost method and shadow wage method. The results of this study were as follows: 1) Time used for agricultural work and household work by with women were 5.3 hours and 3.8 hours each. 2) According to the methods used, the amounts of valuing rural women's labor were varied and ranged from 23,000 won to 43,000 won per day. This study might help recognize the degree of rural women's labor contribution to the household income of farm households and improve the socio-economic status of rural women through showing the productivity of the rural women's labor.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.269-276
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate muscle pains of emotional laborers and determine whether there were differences in their muscle pains depending on the hours spent on emotional labor. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of the data collected from the 3rd (2011) Korean Working Conditions Survey. 50,032 participants responded to the study's questionnaire. Among them, 15,669 participants were emotional laborers who directly dealt with people such as customers, passengers, pupils, patients, etc. Results: Thirty three percent of subjects had reported muscle pains. Muscle pains of subjects were positively related to the hours spent on emotional labor (p<.001). According to the logistic regression analysis, the adjusted odd ratio of the subjects who spent about almost all of the work hours on emotional labor was 1.32 (95% CI: 1.15~1.52), compared to the subjects who spent about a quarter of their work hours on emotional labor, when other factors were controlled. Conclusion: The study's findings indicate that engaging in emotional labor for longer hours increases the risks of muscle pains. Occupational nurses must pay closer attention to the management of muscle pains of emotional laborers.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.25-35
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate how work-family spillover differed by employment status of married women and to identify factors related to the differences. This study drew a sample of 332 self-employers, 181 unpaid family workers, and 1,053 wage workers from the 2014 Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. It was found that negative work-family spillover did not differ by employment status of married women. However, positive work-family spillover was found the lowest in family workers. The regression analysis showed that the difference remained after controlling socio-demographic characteristics, average working hours, and the number of days off per week. The factors related to negative spillover were age, the presence of young children, working hours, and the number of days off. Findings from this study suggest that family workers are most disadvantaged in terms of work-family spillover. Yet there is no policy developed for them. Family policy needs to take them into account in planning and implementing services.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.67-81
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• 1990

Effectiveness of physical exercise in reducing work-related musculoskeletal stress was investigated. This was compared to the stress alleviation accomplished by using ergonomically designed work station. Tasks chosen for the study were data entry and file maintenance on the video display terminal (VDT). Three different measures, namely root-mean-square (RMS) values of electromyogram (EMG), subjective rating and task performance were used for the evaluation. Electromyograms were recorded from the neck, the left and right trapezius muscles in the shoulder region, and L2/L3 region of the back. Subjects rated discomfort levels for the same parts of their body. Task performance was measured by recording typing speed and errors. Each of the five subjects was tested for two days (8 hours/day) in two different work stations. These were the ergonomically designed adjustable work station and the fixed work station of traditional design with no adjustable features. Assigned physical exercises were performed for four minutes, every two hours during the breaks, by the subjects while working in the fixed work station. It was concluded that the physical exercise could be helpful in reducing musculoskeletal stress as effectively as the ergonomic design of the VDT work station.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2024

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the logistics industry in Korea has rapidly been expanding, with offline demand concentrating on online platforms owing to the development of digital infrastructure. This has increased the workload of courier drivers considerably, along with labor intensity. A delivery driver died recently from overwork due to the continuous increase in delivery volume, which raises social concerns. Delivery drivers work long hours, (over 12 hours) and are greatly affected by weather conditions, such as snow, rain, heat waves, and cold waves. In addition, they lack a fixed workplace; perform atypical work handling workpieces of various sizes, weights, and shapes; and spend a large amount of time driving as part of their work. This work involves a high level of tension and requires attention and concentration. Despite the frequency of industrial accidents in the courier industry, studies on safety and health to quantitatively analyze and systematize the work of courier workers are very scarce. Therefore, to define the work process necessary for investigating the harmful factors in delivery service and the work analysis, this study conducted interviews and on-site surveys to analyze the unit work of the delivery service by targeting delivery workers. In other words, a framework of unit work for work analysis was presented to enable research and analysis by considering the aforementioned characteristics of the courier industry. The process was broadly divided into work, transport, storage, delay, and inspection. Work was divided into loading, sorting, unloading, and door subcategories, and transportation was divided into vehicle, cart, and walking subcategories as well as 10 small processes. Moreover, 22 unit works were again drawn by conducting field surveys and interviews. The risk of unit work derived from this study was ergonomically evaluated, and the ergonomic analysis revealed that uploading and transportation were the most dangerous. The results of this study could be used as basic data for preventing industrial accidents among courier workers, whose work has increased with the logistics volume and the development of the logistics industry.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.759-770
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to examine how time-use and activities are affected by work hours. To achieve this, we focused on the weekday time-use of full-time workers in Seoul Metropolitan Area(SMA). The long 'work hours' are under active discussions since it is related to the quality of life. However, many Social researcher thought that problem of Korean working hours is linked to quality of life in the abstract. Because activity connects time-use and quality of life, the key point is activity under time constraints. Therefore, travel patterns should be understood by time-use and activity patterns. This study composes trip-chains from travel data of 2010 Household Travel Survey(HTS). Grouping trip-chains by activity patterns, we could make sure that a few of activities after work is affected by a short free time. This study has potential implications for the policy of work hours and traffic problems in the evening, and will provide new geographical perspective related to measuring quality of life.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.99-125
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• 2008

This article aimed to clear that the systematic bias according to the length of work time exists between estimated work time by self-reported questions used mainly in measuring and calculating the length of work time because of strong points of easy in measuring and so on and diary work time by time-diary method used because of the strong point that can measure more accurate lifetime by recording various activities of respondents during 24 hours in the stream. As the result that analyze the data from Lifetime Use Survey in 2004, the result like the contradiction came that the tendency of overstating work time is rising according as estimated work time increases via estimated work time, whereas the tendency of understating work time is rising according as diary work time increases via diary work time. The reason that the opposite results come despite the data from the same survey is that random errors act in the opposite directions by regression to the mean. Therefore, we cannot emphasize that a man working long hours tends to exaggerate his work hours by the result via estimated work time. That is, the fact that the systematic bias by the increase of work time does not exist is confirmed, and therefore, it is also impossible to raise questions about the accuracy of the data through estimated work time by self-reported questions from the evidence of the existence of that bias.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.265-276
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• 2004

The purpose of this study,was to find out health status, characteristics related to working conditions, occurrence of low back pain and its related factors among dental hygienists working in dental clinics, and, thus, to provide basic information necessary to set up some plans for preventing the occurrence of low back pains and improving working conditions for dental hygienists. The data were collected from 310 dental hygienists working at dental clinics in Pusan and Kyungnam area, including Masan, Changwon, Jinhae and Jinju, with a self-administered questionnaire and were analyzed finally for 295 records with SPSS for Windows(7.52K) program. The results were as follows : Working condition was considered to be fair by 562% of dental hygienists were thought to threaten their health in the dental clinics. About seventy percent of dental hygienists worked over ten hours a day and 72.8% were standing while working over 7 hours, 65% considered working hours too long. Health status was thought be more than average for 82.3% while more than half perceived certain degree of stress frequently. The rate of complaining low back pains among dental hygienists was 87.8% with pains more than medium level for 39.3%. The variables significantly related to the degree of low back pains were height, uncomfortable postures, type of working postures and the height of working table, while some variables including height, hours of working on the feet, the presence of hazardous work environment, uncomfortable postures, the presence of hazardous works, the amount of working hours, type of working postures and work-associated stresses, were significantly related to the number of symptoms for low back pains. Multiple regression analysis showed that occurrence of low back pains was significantly influenced by 5 factors such as subjective status of health, work-related stresses, the degree of perception to work environment, the degree of perception to the amount of working hours and age. In conclusion, it might be necessary to manage working conditions effectively by reducing working hours, making good postures while working and removing stressful conditions in order to reduce risk factors for the occurrence of low back pains among dental hygienists. Therefore good working postures, assignment of appropriate rest time and some programs for early detection, care and education of low back pains should be provided for the dental hygienists.