6–10 Jun 2022
Tübingen
Europe/Berlin timezone

Does Work Control Affect Leisure-Time Physical Activity? A Cross-National Comparison of Eighteen European Countries and Moderating Influence of Country Characteristics

Speakers

Sara Wiertsema Gerbert Kraaykamp Debby Beckers Remco Hoekman

Description

Objectives: The relevance of work control for employees’ work and non-work outcomes is widely recognized, including for sport and other physical activity [PA]. However, this is the first study to assess how the relationship between control over work and leisure-time PA relates to country-level job security and PA opportunity structure in the European context.
Methods: We answer our research question with high-quality cross-national data from the European Social Survey 2014 on 14631 respondents in 18 European countries. Secondary data from Eurostat, World Bank and EWCS are used to enrich these data. We analyze the data through multi-level modeling.
Findings: Our findings suggest that workers with more control are more physically active in their leisure time. In countries with greater job security or PA opportunity structure, the differences between workers with varying degrees of job control are smaller.
Conclusion: Workers with work control are more physically active in leisure time, regardless of education and occupation among others. Our results thus underscore that in the general European context work control is an essential resource for workers. The cross-level moderations suggest a compensation effect of country job security and PA opportunity structure, as workers with little job control profit the most from living in such contexts.

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