Development of Organisational and Psychosocial Work Factors Across Industries with Different Gender Composition in Sweden, 2003-2013

• Background: In Sweden, the development of mental ill-health and sickness absence has been poorer in female-dominated industries compared to others. One possible explanation is the different developments of psychosocial working conditions across industries. Men and women appear to react similarly to the same psychosocial exposures at work, but differences in exposure patterns may prevail. There is to date a lack of studies on the extent to which psychosocial work exposures are associated with the gender segregation on the Swedish labour market at the industry level. This study aims to investigate how organisational and psychosocial work factors have developed over time across industries with different gender composition in Sweden from 2003 to 2013, and to what extent these factors differ between industries.Methods: The present study is based on repeated cross-sectional data from the Swedish Work Environment Survey (SWES). SWES is conducted biennially by Statistics Sweden (SCB) and includes Swedish workers aged 16-64 years. Six waves from 2003 to 2013, comprising a study sample of 45,631 subjects, were analysed, Industries were categorised according to gender composition and divided into seven categories: 1) Goods and energy production; 2) Machine handling; 3) Manual services; 4) Public administration; 5) Knowledge intensive services; 6) Education; 7) Health and social care. Proportions of men and women in each industry who were exposed to adverse or positive organisational and psychosocial work factors were calculated for each of the six waves. Logistic regression analyses, adjusted for age, educational level and year of response to SWES were performed on the full sample (all six waves), in order to estimate the odds of being exposed to organisational and psychosocial work factors in each industry using the knowledge intensive service industry as the reference category.Results: Preliminary results show that in female dominated industries (Education and Health and social care), many organisational and psychosocial work factors developed poorly over the study period. Higher odds of exposure to adverse or positive organisational and psychosocial work factors were found for several industries when using the industry of Knowledge intensive services as the reference category.Conclusion: This study is one of the first of its kind analysing the development of organisational and psychosocial work factors, as well as differences in these factors between industries with different gender compositions in Sweden.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

work

gender

Sweden

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)