Assessing the influence of working hours on general health by migrant status and family structure: the case of Ecuadorian-, Colombian-, and Spanish-born workers in Spain

Abstract Objectives The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between working hours (WHs) and the likelihood of poor self-reported general health (SRGH) in the first data wave from a cohort of immigrant and native workers in Spain. Study design Cross-sectional analyses from a prospective cohort study. Methods Data were drawn from the first wave of the Platform of Longitudinal Studies on Immigrant Families. The selected sample was composed of 217 immigrant workers and 89 native-born workers. We explored differences by immigrant status and family structure, assessing prevalences and Poisson regression models; an additional analysis explored statistically optimized work hour cut points. Results Highest prevalence of poor SRGH (72.7%) was reported by immigrant, single-parent workers working >40 WH/week. Immigrant single-parent families were more likely to report poor SRGH for three WH categories: ≤20 WH/week (prevalence ratio [PR] = 3.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.6–7.2), >30-≤40 WH/week (PR = 2.8, 95% CI 1.3–6.4), and >40 WH/week (PR = 4.2, 95% CI 1.8–10.1). In two-parent families, immigrants working standard hours (i.e. >30-≤40) and native-born workers in the highest and lowest categories of WHs (i.e. ≤20 and >40) had similar PRs for poor SRGH compared with native-born workers working standard hours. Findings suggested that native-born workers residing in two-parent families were able to work more than 10 h longer per week than immigrant workers before reporting equivalent prevalences of poor SRGH. Conclusions Differences in the association of WHs and poor SRGH among immigrants in Spain seem to be explained by family structure, which suggests that the influence of WHs on health differentially affects vulnerable groups, such as immigrant workers residing in single-parent families.