Work interruptions in the knowledge sector: associations with profession and marital status

Abstract

The advantage of identifying the influence of sociodemographic profiles on work interruptions among knowledge workers is that it allows researchers to predict which individuals are more likely to be interrupted during their work day. For example, there is a relationship between the use of social networks and the profession (engineers are likely to be interrupted more often); between the use of social networks and marital status (knowledge workers who have no partner have more work interruptions); between social origin and working in public administration, and also the socioeconomic situation and working in humanities-social sciences. In contrast, technological disruptions seem to equally affect married and unmarried workers, although singles tend to be more interrupted by their phones. Administrative workers are also more interrupted by mobile phones. All these data are important because of the great impact of interruptions on productivity. More research is needed to identify other variables of a social nature that predispose to labour disruptions.