The Long-term Perspectives on the Norwegian Economy 2024 report includes discussion of a topic that is very prevalent in occupational health research at present; the ageing population, lower birth rates and fewer individuals of working age that can contribute to financially supporting the society’s welfare state. To secure the future of these welfare states, ensuring individuals can work for as long as they can and wish to is essential. Much research has been carried out into older workers and their motivation or wishes to remain in work until pension age. The results of this research indicate, among other things, that occupational exposures can «push» older workers out of work, as well as contribute to them remaining at work until and even after the statutory pension age. However, most of these studies have considered occupational exposures that occur directly before or during the study period. They have not considered the complex interaction between work participation, occupational exposures and occupational health throughout an individual’s working life. Some studies have begun to investigate this topic in the past few years, but very little research has been conducted in Norway, which is essential for ensuring results are representative for the Norwegian setting.
The aim of this project is to use job exposure matrices (JEMs) and STAMI’s register-based Nor-Work cohort to investigate occupational exposures over the working life course and their effects on work participation and other outcomes (health-related and non-health-related) among senior workers. We will also consider the timing of occupational exposures, and whether exposure early in the working life course has a long-lasting effect on work participation in later life. Nor-Work has access to occupational data back to 1960 and tools to impute occupational codes where they are missing, making this cohort well-suited for the aim.
The project group includes collaborators from Finland og Danmark who have experience with similar studies, along with a strong project group based at STAMI who have built up extensive methodological knowledge that can be used to answer the research questions.
Project leader: Rachel Hasting
Project group members: Julie Ulstein, Morten Birkeland Nielsen, Rune Hoff, Karina Undem, Stine Fossum
External collaborators: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH, Finland), The National Research Center for the Working Environment (NFA, Danmark)
More information is to be found on the Norwegian project page.