Adverse employment histories and allostatic load: associations over the working life

BackgroundMost studies on the health impact of occupational stress use single-point measures of stress at work. This study analyses the associations of properties of entire employment trajectories over an extended time period with a composite score of allostatic load (AL).MethodsData come from the French CONSTANCES cohort, with information on adverse employment histories between ages 25 and 45 and a composite score of AL (based on 10 biomarkers, range 0–10) among people aged 45 or older (47 680 women and 45 035 men). Data were collected by questionnaires (including retrospective employment histories) or by health examinations (including blood-based biomarkers). We distinguish six career characteristics: number of temporary jobs, number of job changes, number of unemployment periods, years out of work, mode occupational position and lack of job promotion.ResultsFor both men and women, results of negative binomial regressions indicate that adverse employment histories are related to higher levels of AL, particularly histories that are characterised by a continued disadvantaged occupational position, repeated periods of unemployment or years out of work. Findings are adjusted for partnership, age and education, and respondents with a health-related career interruption or early retirement are excluded.ConclusionsOur study highlights physiological responses as a mechanism through which chronic stress during working life is linked to poor health and calls for intervention efforts among more disadvantaged groups at early stages of labour market participation.

JOB DURATION AND HISTORY-DEPENDENT UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

Unemployment insurance schemes typically include eligibility conditions comprising the employment history prior to becoming unemployed, an aspect largely neglected in the literature. We develop an analytically tractable matching model including such contingencies. Unemployed determine reservation durations for jobs to be acceptable, and stronger employment histories increase reservation durations. This creates a stratification among unemployed; unemployed with short employment histories accept short-term jobs, while those with a strong employment history aims for jobs with a longer duration. A trade-off arises between the employment level and the matching quality in terms of job duration; a stronger reward to employment histories reduces employment, but improves match quality (more long-term jobs). Numerical simulations show that the distribution between short- and long-term jobs is significantly affected by history dependencies in benefits levels and duration. The optimal utilitarian policy is shown to include contingencies based on employment histories of the unemployed.

Uneven geographies of economic recovery and the stickiness of individual displacement

How far do economic recoveries help those whose employment potential was most affected in times of crisis to clamber back—and under what regional conditions? We examine this issue drawing on individuals’ employment histories from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We find that—with the notable exception of the London economy—loss of occupational status is ‘sticky’, with evidence of limited ‘bouncing back’ for those ‘bumped down’ the occupational ladder during the crisis. London’s exceptionalism is consistent with expected metropolitan advantages (denser/larger labour markets), but we find no evidence of a broader North–South divide, while comparisons across regions outside London reveal no significant associations with general indicators of the form/intensity of economic recovery.

Adverse Employment Histories and Later Health Functioning: European Findings Based on Life Histories From SHARE and ELSA

We investigate associations between adverse employment histories over time and health functioning in later life, and explore moderation by national labor market policies. Harmonized life history data come from two studies, SHARE and ELSA, with health beyond age 50 (men= 11,621; women= 10,999). Adverse employment histories consist of precarious, discontinued and disadvantaged careers between age 25 and 50, and we use depressive symptoms, grip strength and verbal memory as outcomes. Adverse employment histories are associated with poor health functioning later in life, especially repeated periods of unemployment, involuntary job losses, weak labor market ties and disadvantaged occupational positions. We find no variations of the associations by national labor market policies. Our study highlights the need to improve working conditions at early career stages. Despite the importance in shaping employment histories, the role of national policies in modifying the impact of employment on health is less clear.

Educational differences in labor market marginalization among mature-aged working men: the contribution of early health behaviors, previous employment histories, and poor mental health

Background Social inequalities in labor force participation are well established, but the causes of these inequalities are not fully understood. The present study aims to investigate the association between educational qualification and labor market marginalization (LMM) among mature-aged working men and to examine to what extent the association can be explained by risk factors over the life course. Method The study was based on a cohort of men born between 1949 and 1951 who were examined for Swedish military service in 1969/70 and employed in 2000 (n = 41,685). Data on educational qualification was obtained in 2000 and information on the outcome of LMM (unemployment, sickness absence, and disability pension) was obtained between 2001 and 2008. Information on early health behaviors, cognitive ability, previous employment histories, and mental health was collected from conscription examinations and nationwide registers. Results Evidence of a graded association between years of education and LMM was found. In the crude model, compared to men with the highest level of education men with less than 12 years of schooling had more than a 2.5-fold increased risk of health-related LMM and more than a 1.5-fold increased risk of non-health-related LMM. Risk factors measured across the life course explained a large part of the association between education and health-related LMM (33–61%) and non-health-related LMM (13–58%). Conclusions Educational differences remained regarding LMM among mature-aged workers, even after considering several important risk factors measured across the life course. Previous health problems and disrupted employment histories explained the largest part of the associations.

Labour and Time

Chaucer’s depictions of work in the Prologue to his Canterbury Tales have been considered from a variety of critical perspectives: as a parade of fourteenth-century London professions; as part of the long and ultimately conventional tradition of estates satire; and even as the deconstruction of the very idea of psychological self-revelation itself. Yet there is a phenomenological aspect to these representations that can be recovered as well: the pilgrims are creatures in time, their ‘selves’ the product not just of heterogeneous employment histories and professionalized jargon but also of changing cultural assumptions about how labouring bodies were defined with respect to naturalized regimes of time. This chapter explores the ways in which Chaucer exploits the intimate connection between work and time, between the labouring past and the perceiving present. His polytemporal depictions of manual, artisan, and religious livelihoods in the General Prologue suggest that his purpose was less to pass judgement on an individual pilgrim’s work than to reveal how his society’s expectations about labour were based on idealizing, aspirational, or outright fictionalized accounts of past labour practices.

Adverse employment histories, later health functioning and national labor market policies: European findings based on life history data from SHARE and ELSA

Objectives We investigate associations between adverse employment histories over an extended time period and health functioning in later life, and explore whether national labor market policies moderate the association. Methods We use harmonized life history data from the Gateway to Global Aging Data on two European studies (SHARE and ELSA) linked to health beyond age 50 (men= 11,621; women= 10,999). Adverse employment histories consist of precarious, discontinued and disadvantaged careers between age 25 and 50, and we use depressive symptoms, grip strength and verbal memory as outcomes. Results Adverse employment histories between age 25 and 50 are associated with poor health functioning later in life, particularly repeated periods of unemployment, involuntary job losses, weak labor market ties and disadvantaged occupational positions. Associations remain consistent after adjusting for age, partnership history, education and employment situation, and after excluding those with poor health prior to or during working life. We find no variations of the associations by national labor market policies.