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Employment history indicators and mortality in a nested case-control study from the Spanish WORKing life social security (WORKss) cohort

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  • María Andrée López Gómez
  • Laura Serra
  • George L Delclos
  • Fernando G Benavides

Abstract

Employment has transitioned from stable to more flexible schemes. Little is known about the effects of dynamic working lives and mortality. We examined the association of employment, unemployment and inactivity on mortality among workers born in 1926–1988, in a nested case-control study of workers from the Spanish WORKss cohort. Cases were all deaths that occurred during 2004–2013 and controls were living persons, matched for sex and age at the time the case occurred. We had information on employment from 1981 to 2013. Logistic regression was used to measure the associations between the 3 employment history indicators separately by sex. There were 53,989 cases and an equal number of controls (n = 107,978). More than 16 years employed showed a protective effect against mortality in women (OR = 0.88, 95%CI: 0.81, 0.94) and men (OR = 0.76, 95%CI: 0.70, 0.79). The number of spells and time in unemployment and inactivity were significantly related to mortality in men, but not women. Sensitivity analyses by labor relationship showed stronger associations of unemployment (OR = 1.42, 95%CI: 1.13, 1.78) and inactivity (OR = 1.34; 95%CI: 1.09, 1.65) for temporary workers. Employment gaps are detrimental to health and have worse effects if the gaps occur without unemployment benefits or after temporary contracts. These results may drive improvement of labor and social policies that protect workers against the potential negative effects of dynamic work lives.

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  • María Andrée López Gómez & Laura Serra & George L Delclos & Fernando G Benavides, 2017. "Employment history indicators and mortality in a nested case-control study from the Spanish WORKing life social security (WORKss) cohort," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0178486
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178486
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    Cited by:

    1. Vicente Núñez-Antón & Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González & Marta Regúlez-Castillo & Carlos Vidal-Meliá, 2020. "Improving the Representativeness of a Simple Random Sample: An Optimization Model and Its Application to the Continuous Sample of Working Lives," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-27, July.
    2. Esteban Sánchez-Moreno & Lorena Gallardo-Peralta, 2021. "From Income Inequalities to Social Exclusion: The Impact of the Great Recession on Self-Rated Health in Spain During the Onset of the Economic Crisis," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, October.
    3. Katrien Vanthomme & Sylvie Gadeyne, 2019. "Unemployment and cause-specific mortality among the Belgian working-age population: The role of social context and gender," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-14, May.
    4. Matilde Leonor Alba-Jurado & María José Aguado-Benedí & Noelia Moreno-Morales & Maria Teresa Labajos-Manzanares & Rocío Martín-Valero, 2021. "Occupation and Sickness Absence in the Different Autonomous Communities of Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-12, October.
    5. Sarah A. Felknor & Jessica M. K. Streit & Michelle McDaniel & Paul A. Schulte & L. Casey Chosewood & George L. Delclos & on behalf of the Workshop Presenters and Participants, 2021. "How Will the Future of Work Shape OSH Research and Practice? A Workshop Summary," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-21, May.

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