Although reduced working time and furlough policy initiatives are widely regarded as important for economic and business reasons, little is known about their impacts on workers’ mental health at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Panel Study data from 2018 to February 2020 and April 2020 and change score analysis, this study aims to compare mental health changes between those who worked reduced hours, were furloughed and left/lost paid work. The results suggest that at the onset of COVID-19 reduced working time and furlough can protect workers’ mental health, but only for men not for women. The gender differences remain significant even after controlling for housework and childcare responsibilities at the onset of COVID-19. These results highlight the importance of distributing paid work more equitably and formulating gender-sensitive labour market policies in protection of workers’ mental health.

As public policies are focusing on retaining the ageing workforce, flexible working time arrangements in late career have gained visibility over the past decades. However, given the institutional nature of these arrangements, little is known about the extent to which older workers reduce working hours at a cross-country level. Using data from the 2012 Labour Force Survey ad hoc module, the article aims to provide estimates about the number of workers aged fifty-five to sixty-nine reducing working time in a move towards retirement (before and after the first old-age pension) and assessing, using a multilevel modelling, whether these arrangements play a role in explaining the decision to work beyond the pension age in thirty European countries. Descriptive results show important variations among countries and between genders. The multilevel model shows that the impact of working time reductions in late career varies from one country to another.