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Although reduced-hours work is widely thought to decrease distress, empirical literature relating absolute number of hours worked to distress outcomes is inconsistent. Perhaps the trade-off between giving up some aspects of work for more nonwork time is more stressful for some employees than for others. The authors tested the hypothesis that difficulty of trade-offs is a more powerful predictor of quality-of-life indicators (i.e., symptoms of anxiety and depression, job-role quality, and intention to turnover within 1 year) than is number of hours worked per se in a non-random sample of 141 reduced-hours physicians in dual-earner couples. Results supported the hypothesis.
Barnett et al. (Mon,) studied this question.