Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 4 · Licensed source edition
Exploring the health and well-being benefits of reduced working hours with maintained salary: A scoping review and evidence map
Originally published 2026-02-28 · Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health
Nordic Association of Occupational Safety and Health · DOI 10.5271/sjweh.4266 ↗
Working-family evidence
Work, care and the whole person.
Relevant to decisions about a reduced-hours policy that also examines unpaid labor; the original evidence concerns 10 scientific articles and five grey-literature reports on reduced hours with maintained pay.
Directly examines work and family life, parenting, caregiving or employment policies for families.
Editorial reading guide · Independence
Would reduced paid hours create more freedom for everyone in the household?
This reading brings shorter hours without pay loss, recovery and gendered unpaid work into the independence pathway. The scoping review and evidence map offers a specific workplace lens on how employment and family life meet.
Study context
10 scientific articles and five grey-literature reports on reduced hours with maintained pay
Age / stage: Employed-adult evidence concentrated in Scandinavian and Western European settings
Read with three questions
- How did the researchers define and assess intervention sizes, maintained pay and reported outcomes?
- What does the study design allow us to conclude about gender differences and the evidence map's implementation contexts?
- What would need to be checked before adopting a reduced-hours policy that also examines unpaid labor?
Keep the limits in view
The intervention evidence is heterogeneous and geographically limited; reduced paid work can coexist with increased unpaid work for women.
The text below is the original article’s licensed repository edition. Its wording is not rewritten. Use the Paper Agent beside the text to locate evidence; open the source for figures, tables and complete context.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Mireia Utzet; Mercè Soler; Jose Maria Ramada; Marta Menéndez; Michael Silva-Peñaherrera; Fernando G Benavides; Consol Serra (2026). Exploring the health and well-being benefits of reduced working hours with maintained salary: A scoping review and evidence map Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.4266
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-05. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.