Oost west, thuis best? Een onderzoek naar de invloed van thuiswerken op de mentale en fysieke gezondheid van werknemers.

Abstract

Teleworking is a common phenomenon in the Netherlands nowadays. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether teleworking influences the mental and the physical health of employees. However there are some positive influences of teleworking on both mental and physical health. This research expects that teleworking is a negative influence both the mental and the physical health. This was tested based on data of the European Working Conditions Survey from 2015, with over 38000 respondents with a regression analysis. The results turned out to be the opposite of what was expected: telework may have a positive influence on both mental and physical health. Points of improvements could have been that the variable 'mental health' could have been measured more accurately by using a measurement over time. The variable 'physical health' could have been measured more accurately by also taking physical tests. Strong points of this research are the fact that there was made use of an extensive dataset, and the unique combination of the influence of telework on both mental and physical health within one study.