Work participation and work-related health: a life course perspective

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, work related health, and exclusion from working life. The main outcomes are sickness absence, disability pension, and work-related 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 regarding the individual participants and their parents in follow-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 repeated county surveys (HUNT) as well as The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

This combined approach will give us an opportunity to gain new knowledge with regard to both short and long term determinants 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. 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 childhood 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.

Project page in Norwegian