Research project Social inequalities in health and labor market attachment among older workers

Project summary

With increasing age, and in particular after 50 years of age, an increasing number of persons are excluded from the labor market due to health problems. There are large socioeconomic differences in health and labor market participation, especially from middle age and onwards. Poor health may develop over a long period of time from childhood and onwards.

Project aim

The aim of this epidemiological study is to investigate the importance of physical and psychosocial work environments measured over the entire working life, and individual factors, as determinants of early exclusion from the labor market. The main outcome measures will be long-term sickness absence, unemployment, and early retirement due to disability in older workers. In this three year project we will use two cohorts where the participants recently have reached retirement age and that holds critical information on each individual collected from childhood/adolescence and over the entire working life. Data on exposure to physical work load and psychosocial conditions at work will be attributed to each individual by using job-exposure matrixes with information from several points in time.

With the adoption of a life course approach we will investigate the possibility to identify potential critical periods during the life course where negative or positive labour market exposures have strong impacts socioeconomic differences in health and labor market participation.