summary lectures challenges to work health and well-being

Summary lectures challenges in work, health and wellbeing (WB)

Lecture 1

Introduction to the course;

- Work is an important part of peoples WB, including socio-economic position, prestige +
identity
- Work is a major cause of illness and injury, weighing heavily on the health care budgets of
welfare states, successfulness of businesses and people’s quality of life
- Health effects of work are an area of growing policy attention in ageing society

What do we mean by work, health and WB

What is work  we devide it in

- Paid and unpaid work/labor (paid work is on labour market, unpaid is at home)
- We focus on paid work in organization
- Whether work is paid or unpaid differs across time (childcare now and then) and place

Jobs, talking about people’s work = talking about their jobs

- ‘situated descriptions of employment, that take into account where and how work is actually
performed (ahohen 2018)  your job is always situation where you are in. This is dependent
on;
employment relationship (self-employment, contract)
occupation (Teachers, welders, nurses)
Working conditions (Location and hours worked, wages)
Job characteristics (ergonomic demands)

Health and WB = adjacent concepts

- WBis combination of feeling good and functioning well; experience of positive emotions such
as happiness and contentment as well as development of one’s potential, having some
control over one’s live, having sense of purpose and experiencing positive relationships
(Huppert 2009)
- Health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being (WHO) (doctor says nothings wrong, you can still be unwell)

Job rewards/resources refer to work can have positive impact on wellbeing and health

- WBrewards of employment include:
 income, social status, identity, social networks
- Health rewards of employment include:
better self-reported mental+physical health, psycho-social resources, health
insurances&benefits.
 These can improve your health

Job demands or risks (or stressors) refer to work that can have a negative impact on wellbeing and
health

- Work related health problems are common.

,How does work affect health and WB?

- Work affects health and WB in complex, reciprocal and heterogenous ways. (lansbergis
2018; Ahonen 2018)
Complex; work affects health/ WB differently in different circumstances and work can be
both health enhancing and health damaging (article mineworkers)
Reciprocal; causal relations run in both directions. Work can be good for health, health can
be good for work,
heterogenous work affects health/WB of different groups of workers differently

Part 3: the unequal distribution of health/well-being risks and rewards of work

Unequal exposure to physical health risks.

- Employment exposes workers to physical and mental health demands or risks in
heterogeneous or unequal ways.
- There is a broad consensus on existence of social gradient in health
- Social gradient implies that health inequalities mirror wider social inequalities
- Different jobs poses different physical demans/risk
 Exposure to hazards (production/use of harmful/toxic substances)
 Repetitive overuse ‘wears out’body (lifting heavy objects, mouse arm)
 Working conditions (long hours, night work)

Exposure to mental health risks

- Some work poses psyco-social demands
stress enhancing forms of work organization (insecurity,
scheduling)
stressfull/traumatic interpersonal encounters (toxic
work culture, client/patient aggression)
work pressure

Occupational health disparities

- Unequal exposure to health risks across jobs
- OHD framework = Occupational health disparities framework  health disparities related to
work result from exposure tohealht demands and resources associated with different jobs
( package of occupations, working conditions and job characteristics)
- Jobs expose workers different risks
- Some jobs expose workers to more risks than others

Unequal exposure to WB benefits and risks

- WB inequalities mirror labour market inequalities
- Labor markets are unequal institutions
social/occupational class theory
Labour market segmentation; insider/outsider theories, people with (non) permanent
contract.
- Paid work or workers is often subdivided into segments
blue vs white collar; manual vs non manual
Self employment vs dependent employment
Occupation/occupational class

, Inequalities in WB&rewards labour market inequalities are related to

- Earnings (contract status, job security, entitlement to paid leave, autonomy vs authority)
- But also, exposure to health risks and benefits

Organizations as spaces that generate inequalities

- Relational inequality; how categorical distinctions become interactional bases for moral
evaluation, inclusion and exclusion from opportunities and exploitation of effort +value
- Most powerful locations in social life are proximate networks of social relationships
- Relation inequality theory; organizations create and recreate categorical inequalities.

RIT; generations of workplace inequalities

- Exploitation; more privileged group appropriates the fruits of labour of other group
- Social closure, exclusion & opportunity; people who qualify for positions are similar to those
who are already in positions etc.
- Claims making when claims get expected you can maybe get higher salaries. Effort or time
pays off in labour market.

Lecture 1, Part 3 take away messages

- The physical and psycho-social demands and resources of jobs are unequally distributed
- Different jobs are associated with different exposure to physical and psycho-social risks,
demands and resources
- A range of factors like gender, age, education, disability, ethnicity and socio-economic
background affect the types of jobs people have access to as well as their health status
- Workplaces/organizations are spaces where these inequalities are legitimized, created and
re-created through exploitation, social closure and claims making