Shift work and family and social life: Worker and spouse perspectives

Abstract

Research on the impact of shift work on family and social life tends to privilege the perspective of workers, being rare the research that compares the perspective of third parties. Considering this limitation, the present study includes the perspective of the spouses of rotating shift workers in the understanding of the impact of shift work on family and social life dimensions, trying to assess whether there are differences in the perception of impacts on the dyad. 51 couples participated in the study. There was a moderate agreement in the analyses of differences of dyads with regard to the impact of shift work. On the other hand, considering the different working hours of each member of the couple, the results showed a significant difference among the two groups of dyads in the correlations between the spouse's point of view and the worker's point of view on the “Life of Couple “dimension.