Inequalities in work participation and work-related health: a life course perspective

Work participation and work-related health: a life course perspective Our research focuses on health and social conditions over the life course, and how they relate with later health and work participation among everyone born in Norway 1967-1976 (626 928 individuals). We investigate factors that affect labor market entry ("faster in") and sick leave ("fewer out"), more than factors related to the sick listed and economic consequences ("faster back"). We focus on gender differences, social inequalities and the importance of early health and childhood conditions. By linkage with work environment data of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) and the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), we explore interaction between working conditions, individual resources, and childhood conditions on work participation. Several sub-projects are in progress. * Social position and general ability are predictors of health. We find that education has a stronger direct effect on health than intelligence and income, but the total effect of education and intelligence are quite similar. * Social interaction may influence social benefit receiving. In two sub-projects, we find that a sibling?s sick leave affect own sick leave, and that parental absence during adolescence affects own sick leave in adulthood. * Family income in childhood may affect cognitive development. We find that low income in childhood has a negative cognitive effect and the effect varies with the age of low parental income. * Social position and work environment factors are predictors of health. Among participants in the HUNT study we find social gradients in sick leave, partially mediated by work environment factors, especially physically demanding work. Collaboration with researchers at Columbia University in New York, and Department of Biostatistics, University of Oslo, is important for method development in our work, especially multi-level analysis and causal analysis in complex longitudinal models.

The study population is all 626 928 live born women and men in Norway 1967-1976. Thus, the study is restricted to young adults. The main focus is on estimating the impact of early life course determinants (individual characteristics, family background) on subsequent educational attainment and entrance into work, and the role of these factors in interplay with work-related factors for work participation and exclusion from working life. The main outcomes are sickness absence, disability pension, and work-re lated musculoskeletal pain but the study will also include employment/unemployment, social benefit, job seeking career, and income level. We will apply a comprehensive approach based on information from the individual participants and their parents in fol low-up from birth onwards. The main body of data have been gathered through linkage between several national registries. Municipal data will be retrieved in Statistics Norway and Norwegian Social Science Data Services. This registry-based material will be linked with five county surveys as well as panel data from The Level of Living Survey, Work Conditions 2006 and 2009 (LKU-A 2006/2009). This combined approach will give us an opportunity to gain new knowledge with regard to both short and long term deter minants of importance for work participation and work-related health. We will pay particular attention on the interplay between life-course social and individual factors and the work environment. Educational attainment is an important determinant of worki ng life function and will be another study topic. Gender differences and social inequalities in work-related health will be particularly addressed, as well as experiences in groups with a suboptimal social background or chronic health impairments in child hood and adolescence. In this way, we expect to gain broad knowledge of value for promoting work participation as well as preventive strategies related to sickness absence and exclusion from work in young age.