RESEARCH REPORT

Employment status, employment conditions, and limiting illness: prospective evidence from the British household panel survey 1991–2001

M Bartley, A Sacker, P Clarke

Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London Medical School, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor M Bartley
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London Medical School, 1–19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK; mel{at}public-health.ucl.ac.uk

Objectives: To assess the relation of the incidence of, and recovery from, limiting illness to employment status, occupational social class, and income over time in an initially healthy sample of working age men and women.

Methods: Cox proportional hazards models.

Results: There were large differences in the risk of limiting illness according to occupational social class, with men and women in the least favourable employment conditions nearly four times more likely to become ill than those in the most favourable. Unemployment and economic inactivity also had a powerful effect on illness incidence. Limiting illness was not a permanent state for most participants in the study. Employment status was also related to recovery.

Conclusions: Having secure employment in favourable working conditions greatly reduces the risk of healthy people developing limiting illness. Secure employment increases the likelihood of recovery. These findings have considerable implications for both health inequality and economic policies.

Keywords: employment conditions; job security; limiting illness; social class; unemployment

Abbreviations: BHPS, British household panel survey; NS-SEC, National Statistics Socio-economic classification

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

In this eclectic issue, we ask whether involvement in civic society is good for your health and tackle the vexed issue of terms relating to ethnicity and race

Carlos Alvarez-Dardet, John R Ashton
J Epidemiol Community Health 2004 58: 437. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Schuring, M, Burdorf, A, Voorham, A J, der Weduwe, K, Mackenbach, J P (2009). Effectiveness of a health promotion programme for long-term unemployed subjects with health problems: a randomised controlled trial. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 63: 893-899 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Muntaner, A., Borrell, C., Sola, J., Mari-Dell'Olmo, M., Chung, H., Rodriguez-Sanz, M., Benach, J., Noh, S. (2009). Capitalists, managers, professionals and mortality: Findings from the Barcelona Social Class and All Cause Mortality Longitudinal Study. Scand J Public Health 37: 826-838 [Abstract]  
• Daoud, N, Soskolne, V, Manor, O (2009). Examining cultural, psychosocial, community and behavioural factors in relationship to socioeconomic inequalities in limiting longstanding illness among the Arab minority in Israel. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 63: 351-358 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Dorling, D. (2009). Unemployment and health. BMJ 338: b829-b829 [Full Text]  
• Dray-Spira, R, Gueguen, A, Lert, F, the VESPA Study Group*, (2008). Disease severity, self-reported experience of workplace discrimination and employment loss during the course of chronic HIV disease: differences according to gender and education. Occup. Environ. Med. 65: 112-119 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Steenland, K., Pinkerton, L. E. (2008). Mortality Patterns following Downsizing at Pan American World Airways. Am J Epidemiol 167: 1-6 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Atherton, K., Power, C. (2007). Health inequalities with the National Statistics-Socioeconomic classification: disease risk factors and health in the 1958 British birth cohort. Eur J Public Health 17: 486-491 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Schuring, M., Burdorf, L., Kunst, A., Mackenbach, J. (2007). The effects of ill health on entering and maintaining paid employment: evidence in European countries. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 61: 597-604 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Cohen, F., Kemeny, M. E., Zegans, L. S., Johnson, P., Kearney, K. A., Stites, D. P. (2007). Immune Function Declines With Unemployment and Recovers After Stressor Termination. Psychosom. Med. 69: 225-234 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Dray-Spira, R., Gueguen, A., Ravaud, J.-F., Lert, F. (2007). Socioeconomic Differences in the Impact of HIV Infection on Workforce Participation in France in the Era of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. AJPH 97: 552-558 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Christensen, U., Schmidt, L., Kriegbaum, M., Hougaard, C. O., Holstein, B. E. (2006). Coping with unemployment: Does educational attainment make any difference?. Scand J Public Health 34: 363-370 [Abstract]  
• Bartley, M. (2005). Job insecurity and its effect on health. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 59: 718-719 [Full Text]