People who commute longer than 60 minutes are more likely to develop a depressive disorder.
- Commutes lasting more than 60 minutes increase the risk of depression by 1.2.
- Men are more likely to have depressive symptoms if they are single, don’t have children, or work long hours.
- Women were more likely to have depressive symptoms if they had multiple children.
Every day, employees take public transport, bicycle or car to go to work. While some are fortunate to be geographically close to the place where their professional activity takes place, others find themselves making long journeys due to traffic jams or the distant location of their home. In a recent study, Korean researchers wanted to show how being stuck in traffic for a long time or spending a lot of time in transport can be detrimental to our mental health.
Work: commuting more than an hour is associated with a high risk of depression
As part of a study, published in the journal Journal of Transport & Health, they used data from a survey on working conditions carried out in Korea, where the average duration of commuting would be the longest and depressive symptoms the highest among OECD countries. The scientists analyzed various factors of 23,415 workers aged 20 to 59, such as gender, age, education level, income, region, marital status, presence of children, occupation, weekly working hours and night work. “Patients whose World Health Organization Five Well-Being Index total score was less than 13 were defined as having depressive symptoms,” the team said.
According to the results, participants who spent more than 60 minutes per day commuting from home to work were 1.16 times more likely to have depressive symptoms than people who spent less than 30 minutes. Associations between long commutes and depression were particularly observed among men aged 40 to 49 and women aged 20 to 29. In detail, people with low incomes, single men without children and working long hours as well as women with two or more children were the most exposed to depressive symptoms.
“Reduce travel time to help people reconcile work and family life”
“With less free time, people may lack time to reduce stress and combat physical fatigue through sleep, hobbies and other activities. They also have less time to adopt healthy lifestyle habits, including physical activity, which can contribute to depression”, explained the authors in a statement. They concluded that “Efforts to reduce travel time were needed to help people balance work and family life.”
