Xue, Baowen;
Chung, Heejung;
Gu, Ran;
Mcmunn, Anne;
(2025)
Does the 'right to request' flexible work policy influence men's and women's uptake of flexible working and well-being: findings from the UK Household Longitudinal Study.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
10.1136/jech-2025-224166.
(In press).
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: The 'right to request' flexible working policy has been gradually extended and, by 2014, extended to cover all workers with at least 26 weeks of continuous employment. The impact of these policy changes is unclear. This research aims to assess the effects of the 2014 policy reform on the uptake of flexible working and its impact on health and well-being, focusing on gender differences. METHODS: Data were drawn from waves 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2010-2020). We employed a doubly robust difference-in-differences method to estimate the average treatment effects on the treated of the 2014 policy reform. This analysis examined the effects on the uptake of flexible working, mental and physical health, and satisfaction with life, job and leisure. FINDINGS: The 2014 policy reform increased women's uptake of reduced hours work arrangements, with the effect growing stronger over time. However, no increase in uptake was observed among men. No strong effects were found for flexitime or teleworking arrangements for either men or women. Additionally, the policy reform resulted in a reduction in psychological distress and improved life satisfaction among women. CONCLUSIONS: The reduction in women's psychological distress and improved life satisfaction might be partly explained by the increased women's uptake of reduced hours arrangements, which may have enabled women to better meet their family care demands. However, even the gender-neutral policies on flexible working may inadvertently exacerbate gender inequalities in labour force participation by pushing women more into part-time work.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Does the 'right to request' flexible work policy influence men's and women's uptake of flexible working and well-being: findings from the UK Household Longitudinal Study |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1136/jech-2025-224166 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2025-224166 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ Group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Public, Environmental & Occupational Health, WORKPLACE, METHODS, HEALTH POLICY, GENDER |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215673 |
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