Educational differences in duration of working life and loss of paid employment: working life
                    expectancy in The Netherlands

Robroek, Suzan J W; Nieboer, Daan; Järvholm, Bengt; Burdorf, Alex

doi:10.5271/sjweh.3843

Cited by 43 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…A recent Dutch study found that compared with highly educated workers, the WLE at age 30 years of low-educated men and women was reduced by 7.3 years and 9.9 years, respectively. 25 Low-educated persons often lack vocational education. As compared with highly educated persons, they usually enter the workforce earlier and more frequently are occupied in jobs with physically demanding tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High physical work demands and working life expectancy in Denmark

et al. 2020

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ObjectiveIn most European countries, political reforms gradually increase the statutory retirement age to counter the economic costs of a growing elderly population. However, working to a high age may be difficult for people with hard physical labour. We aim to study the impact of high physical work demands on working life expectancy (WLE).MethodsWe combined physical work demands assessed by job exposure matrix (JEM) and longitudinal high-quality national registers (outcome) in 1.6 million Danish workers to estimate WLE and years of sickness absence, unemployment and disability pension. The JEM value for physical work demand is a summarised score of eight ergonomic exposures for 317 occupations groups, sex and age. The WLE was estimated using a multistate proportional hazards model in a 4-year follow-up period.ResultsIndividuals with high physical work demands had a significantly lower WLE, than those with low physical work demands, with largest differences seen among women. At age 30 years, women with high physical work demands can expect 3.1 years less working, 11 months more of sickness absence and 16 months more of unemployment than low-exposed women. For 30-year-old men, the corresponding results were 2.0 years, 12 months and 8 months, respectively.ConclusionOur findings show that high physical work demands are a marked risk factor for a shortened working life and increased years of sickness absence and unemployment. The results are important when selecting high-risk occupations, and expand the knowledge base for informed political decision making concerning statutory retirement age.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High physical work demands and working life expectancy in Denmark

et al. 2020

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“…Third, while we previously looked at the situation at age 50, we now focus on partial life expectancies between age 50-59 and 60-69, respectively. Focusing on these two age intervals provides a Table 1 Descriptive statistics for men (weighted with sample weights) from SHARE wave 7 in 2017 (sample size, share of men without activity limitations, good physical health, and good cognition ages 50 years and older) and life expectancy at age 60 in 2017, LFP rates for age group 60-64 in 2017, and the current general retirement age in 2019 * Represents the retirement age of the national pension, not the earnings-related pension Sources: SHARE, Eurostat; for retirement ages: https ://www.etk.fi/en/the-pensi on-syste m/inter natio nal-compa rison /retir ement -ages/ (Dudel et al 2018;Lorenti et al 2019;Lozano and Rentería 2019;Pedersen et al 2020;Robroek et al 2020), with several of them including information on certain health aspects like disability, depressive symptoms or self-perceived health (de Wind et al 2018;Lievre et al 2007;Pedersen et al 2019;van der Noordt et al 2019;Wubulihasimu et al 2015). The choice of health dimensions in our investigation is based on their relevance for individuals' performance in the labour market.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When it comes to cognition, studies have found that cognitive ability levels predict individual productivity better than any other observable individual characteristics and that they are increasingly relevant for labour market performance (Schmidt and Hunter 2004;Spitz-Oener 2006). Age-related cognitive decline is usually characterized by having difficulty recalling facts (Ritchie and Tuokko 2010), but may additionally affect processing speed (Salthouse 2010). Immediate word recall, our measure for cognitive health status, is a by now well-established indicator for cognitive functioning and abilities (Salthouse 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Live longer, retire later? Developments of healthy life expectancies and working life expectancies between age 50–59 and age 60–69 in Europe

Weber

Loichinger

2020

Eur J Ageing

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Europe’s population is ageing. Statutory retirement ages are commonly raised to account for continuous increases in life expectancy. In order to estimate the potential to increase statutory and consequently effective retirement ages further, in this study, we investigate the relationship between partial working life expectancy (WLE) and three health expectancies that represent health aspects important for work ability and employability between ages 50 and 59 as well as 60 and 69 for women and men in Europe. We also explore the association between these four indicators and the highest level of educational attainment. We apply Sullivan’s method to estimate WLE and three selected measures that capture general, physical, and cognitive health status of older adults for 26 European countries since 2004. Over time, WLEs increased significantly in the younger age group for women and in the older age group for both sexes. The expected number of years in good physical health have continuously been higher than any of the other three indicators, while the expected number of years in good cognitive health have shown a noticeable increase over time. The investigation of the relationship between education and each life expectancy confirms the well-established positive correlation between education and economic activity as well as good health. Our results indicate potential to extend working lives beyond current levels. However, significant differences in the expected number of years in good health between persons with different levels of education require policies that account for this heterogeneity.

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“…Despite many attempts to reduce socioeconomic health differences, such differences remain large and persistent ( 1 , 2 ). As, in the work domain, low-educated employees much more often prematurely leave the labor force due to health-related problems than their higher-educated counterparts ( 2 – 4 ), it is worrying that lower-educated employees are often difficult to reach in research and intervention efforts aimed at improving their situation ( 5 , 6 ). Through absenteeism, presenteeism, and high staff turnover, this has substantial financial implications for employers too ( 7 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Dialogue Improve the Sustainable Employability of Low-Educated Employees? A Study Protocol for an Effect and Process Evaluation of “Healthy HR”

Hazelzet

Bosma

Rijk

et al. 2020

Front. Public Health

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Background: There is a need to develop sustainable employability (SE) interventions that are better aligned to the needs of low-educated employees. This group needs to get a voice in intervention development and implementation. In this study, a dialogue-based approach is proposed consisting of an online step-by-step support toolkit for employers, "Healthy Human Resources" (HHR). When intervening, this toolkit enables and stimulates employers to have a continuous dialogue with their low-educated employees. By improving the employees' job control, HHR is aimed at cost-beneficially improving SE. This paper describes the protocol of the evaluation study to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation process of HHR on the SE of low-educated employees. Methods: The protocol of the evaluation study consists of: (1) an effect evaluation with a pretest-posttest design with a 1-year follow-up in five work organizations in the Netherlands deploying low-educated employees and with SE as the primary outcome and job control as the secondary outcome. The effect evaluation is expanded with a budget impact analysis; (2) a mixed-method process evaluation at 6 and 12 months after the start of HHR to evaluate the whole implementation process of HHR. This includes the experiences with HHR of various stakeholders, such as employees, human resource managers, and line managers. Discussion: The effect evaluation will give insight into the effects of HHR on the SE of low-educated employees. The process evaluation will provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of the (in) effectiveness of HHR. By improving dialogue, we hypothesize that HHR, through enhancing job control, will strengthen the SE of low-educated employees. Also for helping with tackling the socioeconomic health gap, if proven effective, the implementation of HHR on a wider scale can be recommended.

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Educational differences in duration of working life and loss of paid employment: working life expectancy in The Netherlands

Abstract: This paper adds the life course perspective in a broad age range of the Dutch population using state of the art methodology. The paper offers insight into the educational inequalities in working life expectancy and working years lost.

Cited by 43 publications

References 22 publications

High physical work demands and working life expectancy in Denmark

High physical work demands and working life expectancy in Denmark

Live longer, retire later? Developments of healthy life expectancies and working life expectancies between age 50–59 and age 60–69 in Europe

Does Dialogue Improve the Sustainable Employability of Low-Educated Employees? A Study Protocol for an Effect and Process Evaluation of “Healthy HR”

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