This study attempted to analyze the relationship between commuting time and depressive symptom in Koreans. The 3rd, 4th and 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) was used to analyze workers who regularly commute from their residence to work. Wor...
This study attempted to analyze the relationship between commuting time and depressive symptom in Koreans. The 3rd, 4th and 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) was used to analyze workers who regularly commute from their residence to work. Workers working less than 3 days of weekly work were excluded. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to confirm the relationship between commuting time and depressive symptom.
Among a total of 108,309 workers (53,926 men, 54,383 women), 1.35% of men and 2.14% of women had depressive symptom. After correcting for socio-statistic factors such as workplace size, weekly working hours, shift work, work-life balance, job satisfaction, education level, and income, depressive symptom was analyzed by commuting time. As a result, the group with 30-45 minutes commuting time for both men and women has the lowest risk of experiencing depressive symptom. In the case of the group of less than 30 minutes, the shorter the commuting time, the more depressed. This is presumed to be due to the lack of separation between the residential and working areas of the self-employed group. On the other hand, the group with more than 45 minutes did not show a significant increase in the feeling of depressive symptom even if the commute time increased.
This study found that commuting time was directly associated with mental health problems, and it was verified that the self-employed and waged workers had different effects on depressive symptom. In particular, it is emphasized that workers' commuting time should be recognized as an important variable in consideration of the fact that it can have a close influence over a wide area of life such as the daily life of commuters.