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Flexible working and its relations with work-life conflicts and well-being among crowdworkers in Germany.

BACKGROUND
New forms of digital work such as crowdwork promise to increase potentials for flexible working. As crowdworkers can work highly autonomous and from anywhere at any time via the internet, they may be able to make work and private demands more compatible and avoid role conflicts between the life spheres, and in turn, experience enhanced well-being.


OBJECTIVE
This research asked whether crowdworkers benefit from flexible working potentials. It investigated the association of the use of different dimensions of flexible working (flex-time, flex-place, task autonomy) in crowdwork with work-life conflicts and well-being. Moreover, it explored whether the relationship between flexible working and well-being was mediated by work-life conflicts.


METHODS
The study drew upon a sample of 470 crowdworkers from a cross-sectional self-assessment survey on four different German crowdwork platforms. Structural equation modeling was conducted to estimate the effects of flexible working on work-life conflict, somatic health symptoms, and life satisfaction. Indirect effects were estimated to test the mediation hypothesis.


RESULTS
The findings suggest that if crowdworkers use temporal and task flexibility, they experience fewer work-life conflicts, fewer somatic health symptoms, and greater life satisfaction. This does not apply to flex-place. The relationship between flexible working and well-being is partly mediated by work-life conflict experiences.


CONCLUSION
This study supports that crowdwork offers a high potential for working highly autonomous and flexibly in time and place. It is associated with lower levels of work-life conflict and enhanced well-being, but the benefits of this flexibility are not universally included in CW.