You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 69, Issue 6
  • Higher effort–reward imbalance and lower job control predict exit from the labour market at the age of 61 years or younger: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Research report
Higher effort–reward imbalance and lower job control predict exit from the labour market at the age of 61 years or younger: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
  1. T Hintsa1,
  2. A Kouvonen2,3,4,
  3. M McCann4,5,
  4. M Jokela1,
  5. M Elovainio1,6,
  6. P Demakakos7
  1. 1Institute of Behavioural Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  2. 2Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  3. 3Faculty in Wroclaw, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland
  4. 4UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health (Northern Ireland), Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK
  5. 5MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  6. 6National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland
  7. 7Division of Population Health, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr T Hintsa, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland; taina.hintsa{at}helsinki.fi

Abstract

Background We examined whether higher effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and lower job control are associated with exit from the labour market.

Methods There were 1263 participants aged 50–74 years from the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing with data on working status and work-related psychosocial factors at baseline (wave 2; 2004–2005), and working status at follow-up (wave 5; 2010–2011). Psychosocial factors at work were assessed using a short validated version of ERI and job control. An allostatic load index was formed using 13 biological parameters. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Exit from the labour market was defined as not working in the labour market when 61 years old or younger in 2010–2011.

Results Higher ERI OR=1.62 (95% CI 1.01 to 2.61, p=0.048) predicted exit from the labour market independent of age, sex, education, occupational class, allostatic load and depression. Job control OR=0.60 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.85, p=0.004) was associated with exit from the labour market independent of age, sex, education, occupation and depression. The association of higher effort OR=1.32 (95% CI 1.01 to 1.73, p=0.045) with exit from the labour market was independent of age, sex and depression but attenuated to non-significance when additionally controlling for socioeconomic measures. Reward was not related to exit from the labour market.

Conclusions Stressful work conditions can be a risk for exiting the labour market before the age of 61 years. Neither socioeconomic position nor allostatic load and depressive symptoms seem to explain this association.

  • Work stress
  • DEPRESSION
  • PSYCHOLOGY
  • PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS
  • WORKPLACE

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2014-205148

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text