Recent research has highlighted that those who work in psychologically demanding and unmanageable jobs are more likely to fall ill or leave the labor market early. But a new study in Sweden suggests the picture may be more complex than previously thought — for some workers, having a demanding job can be associated with good outcomes. Christine Varantes of the Karolinska Institutet explains what she and her colleagues have found and what it might mean for extending people’s working lives.
Governments throughout the developed world are interested in exploring how to enable people to extend their working lives. A major part of that discussion focused on how working conditions affect workers’ likelihood of staying longer.
We know from previous research that the work environment can influence how people feel about work later – if they work in demanding jobs that don’t give them much control, they tend to leave. But until now, we didn’t know much about what really happened – are these intentions turning into reality? And what is the relationship between job requirements and how much control a worker has when it comes to working beyond the usual retirement age?
We used nationwide registration data from Statistics Sweden, to study all people between the ages of 55 and 64 living and working in Sweden in December 2001. We followed the same individuals 11 years later, in 2012, to see if they were still working.
As expected, we found that those in jobs with low levels of control in 2001 were less likely to be gainfully employed in 2012, while the opposite was true for those with high levels of control over their work tasks.
But when it came to how hard the job was, the picture was more accurate. Overall, those with more demanding jobs were less likely to receive old-age pension, sick leave benefits, or social assistance, after 11 years, than those with less demanding jobs, while those with low-demand, low-control jobs were lower. They are more likely to continue to work than others.
women and men
But there were significant differences between women and men. We found that when it came to being in control at work, women with a high level of control over their work tasks were more likely to stay in paid work, even if their jobs weren’t very demanding. For men, this was only the case if their jobs were high-demand, highly controlled.
A possible explanation for these gender differences is that Sweden’s labor market is highly gendered: perhaps the difference is in the type of jobs men and women do, rather than in the level of control or stress they have. It may also be due to differences in other factors, such as family needs, income, or health.
Our findings support the basic theory, first proposed by Robert Karasik in the 1970s. Its job demand control model suggests that high demands combined with low control lead to stress that can be detrimental to our health. Karasik’s model suggests that it’s not stress, per se, that makes us sick—it’s the mismatch between being asked to do a lot but not feeling in control of how we do it. So if our jobs are very demanding but we feel like we’re in the driver’s seat, it makes all the difference for us.
Stay in paid employment
Why is this important? Across the developed world, we have declining birth rates and increasing life expectancies – so it is important for governments that people stay in their jobs rather than retire early. And if workers can maintain their health, that will be easier to achieve.
We already know that low levels of control are associated with high levels of illness, disability, and sick leave. But the evidence for the role of business requirements has been more ambiguous.
Our research adds a new depth to the picture. High-pressure jobs aren’t necessarily bad; In fact, a demanding job can be a positive factor in the lives of seniors. Jobs that stretch and challenge us can get us ahead in the job market—and help us stay healthy, too.
Associations of job requirement and job control groups among 616,818 subjects ages 55–64 in paid employment with their labor market status 11 years later: a prospective cohort studywritten by Christine Varantes, Jenny Head, Elizabeth Framke, Rainer Rogoulis, and Christina Alexandrosson, published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health.
Related
