The attribution of work environment in explaining gender differences in long-term sickness absence: results from the prospective DREAM study

• Published in: Occupational and environmental medicine (London, England) England), 2011-09, Vol.68 (9), p.703-705
• Main Authors: Labriola, Merete, Holte, Kari Anne, Christensen, Karl Bang, Feveile, Helene, Alexanderson, Kristina, Lund, Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absenteeism; Adolescent; Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Conflict management; Cross-Sectional Studies; Denmark - epidemiology; Economics; epidemiology; Female; gender; Gender differences; Human resource management; Humans; international occupational health; longitudinal studies; Male; Manual labor; Medical sciences; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Men; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Occupational medicine; Occupations; Proportional Hazards Models; Prospective Studies; Public health; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Quality management; Register data; Risk Factors; Sex Distribution; Short report; Sick leave; Sick Leave - statistics & numerical data; sickness absence; Socioeconomics; Studies; Surveys and Questionnaires; women; Womens health; Work environment; Work environments; Working conditions; Workplace - psychology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1351-0711; 1470-7926; 1470-7926
• DOI: 10.1136/oem.2010.060632

ObjectivesTo identify differences in risk of long-term sickness absence between female and male employees in Denmark and to examine to what extent differences could be explained by work environment factors.MethodsA cohort of 5026 employees (49.1% women, mean age 40.4 years; 50.9% men, mean age 40.2 years) was interviewed in 2000 regarding gender, age, family status, socio-economic position and psychosocial and physical work environment factors. The participants were followed for 18 months in order to assess their incidence of long-term sickness absence exceeding 8 consecutive weeks.Results298 workers (5.9%) received sickness absence compensation for 8 weeks or more. Women had an excess risk of 37% compared to men, when adjusting for age, family status and socio-economic position. Physical work environment exposures could not explain this difference, whereas differences in psychosocial work environment exposures explained 32% of the differences in risk of long-term sickness absence between men and women, causing the effect of gender to become statistically insignificant. The combined effect of physical and psychosocial factors was similar, explaining 30% of the gender difference.ConclusionDifferences in psychosocial work environments in terms of emotional demands, reward at work, management quality and role conflicts, explained roughly 30% of women's excess long-term sickness absence risk. Assuming women and men had identical working conditions would leave the larger part of the gender difference in long-term sickness absence from work unexplained.