Working Conditions, Health
and Reward at Work
of European Older Workers
Workshop on ‘’Working at old age – Emerging theories
and empirical perspectives on ageing and work’’
CEDEFOP
September, 29-30 2008, Thessaloniki
Thierry Debrand (*), Pascale Lengagne (**)
(*) [email protected] (**) [email protected]
Institute for Research and Information in Health Economics, Paris
Introduction
Problems in Retirement Financing => Employment rate of older workers
 Providing financial incentives for firms or individuals
These measures have their limits. In particular if older workers are not
satisfied with the reward they receive at work, maybe they will always
prefer retiring as soon as possible.
Looking more precisely at the notion of ‘reward at work’ among older workers
Focus on two determinants of reward at work:
Working conditions and Health status
Introduction
Survey on Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)
carried out in 2004&2006
 Defining the notion of ’’ Reward at work ’’:
‘’The feeling of receiving the recognition deserved’
‘’Having adequate salary relatively to the effort realised’’
‘’Having good prospects for job advancement’’
Introduction
Hypotheses, Data, Statistical methods
Results
Policy implications and conclusions
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: Existence of wage differentials for risky jobs
« Are older workers having risky jobs sufficiently rewarded for these risky conditions? »
« Is this hypothesis true within all socioeconomic groups? »
Hypothesis 2: Impact of health on reward at work, in the long run
Health status, as part of human capital (Becker, 1964; Grossman, 1972; Currie and
Madrian, 1999), influences workers’ productivity, income, labour participation…
Long run: « poor health status » => lowest socioeconomic position, lowest reward
at work
Hypothesis 3: Impact of reward at work on health
« Effort-reward imbalance » model (Siegrist, 1996) : Imbalance between reward
and effort at work is a source of psychosocial risk; on the long run, it can lead to
health problems => Self-assessed health status, cardiovascular diseases,
depressivity, musculoskeletal disorders.
See also: Debrand, Lengagne (2007)
Data
Data
•
Survey on Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) carried out in
2004 (first wave) and 2006 (second wave)
30,000 people aged 50 and over, living in eleven European countries: Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands,
Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
SHARE is inspired by similar surveys in the United States and in the UK: the
Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) in the United States and the British
panel ELSA (English Longitudinal Survey on Ageing).
The topics considered are of particular interest to several disciplines: health,
psychology, economics or sociology.
Free access for all researchers! www.share-project.org
Our sample : 3 273 workers aged between 50 and 63 in 2004, still working in 2006
Détails on this sample: 10 410 persons between 50 and 63 in 2004
6 475 of them was working in 2004
6 475 = 3 273 persons who was working in 2006
+ 744 persons who was not working in 2006
+ 2 458 persons lost
Data
Selection effects ?
Socioeconomic factors associated with the probability of being
surveyed two years later
Higher probability
No statistical differences
according to …
Depression risk,
Psychosocial risks (Karasek, 1991),
No support at work,
Country
Self-assessed health status,
Age, Gender, Education,
Firm’s size,
Familial structure,
Wishes for early retirement,
Job insecurity,
Reward at work
Data
• Indicator of reward at work : (between 3 and 12)
Reward = ‘’Receiving the recognition deserving for my work’’ (1 to 4)
+ ‘’My salary or earning are adequate’’ (1 to 4)
+ ‘’Having good prospects for job advancement’’ (1 to 4)
Low :
Intermediate :
High :
34 % in 2004 ; 33 % in 2006
43 % in 2004 ; 44 % in 2006
23 % in 2004 ; 23 % in 2006
Transitions ?
45 % of low rewarded person in 2004 declare a better reward 2 years later
25 % of intermediate levels declare a low reward 2 years later
21 % of intermediate levels declare a high reward 2 years later
35 % of high levels declare an intermediate reward 2 years later
13 % of high levels declare a low reward 2 years later
• Indicator of health status : ‘Self-assessed health status’
• Indicators of working conditions :
‘Being under constant time pressure due to heavy workload’
‘Having a physically demanding job’
Statistical Methods
Method (1/2)
• First step : Correlations between WC and Reward at Work
=> our first hypothesis
M1 : Random-effects regression model
=> No control for individual time-invariant unobserved differences
(for instance: risk aversion, contextual and cultural time-invariant
variables… )
M2 : Regression model where regressors are correlated with errors
=> Control for individual time-invariant unobserved differences
Method (2/2)
• Second step : Analysis of the causalities between
Health and Reward at work
(=> our second and third hypothesis)
M3 : We have estimated a structural model to study
the impact of reward at work on health status. Our IV is
the firm’s size.
H 
 R  WC  X
R 
 Firm ' sSize  X
WC 
 Firm ' sSize  X
Results
Correlations (First step)
Working Conditions and Reward at Work?
When time-invariant differences are not controlled (Model M1)
A lack of reward
is associated with risky jobs (time pressure or physically demanding job).
When time-invariant differences are controlled (Model M2)
No association between time pressure and reward
=> In our sample, ‘compensation for time pressure’ is not rejected.
Significant association between physically demanding jobs and reward
=> ‘compensation for physically demanding job’ is rejected.
Time pressure due to heavy
workload
Physically demanding job
M1
M2
Odds-Ratio
Odds-Ratio
0.69
***
(0.07)
0.56
1.03
ns
(0.14)
***
(0.06)
Standard deviation in parentheses *** = Significant at 1%
0.70
**
(0.12)
NS = non significant
Correlations (First step)
Working Conditions and Reward at work?
Are our last results consistent within all socioeconomic groups?
An exploration of several socioeconomic groups leads us to isolate
four groups:
Group of people who receive compensation
for ‘time pressure due to heavy workload’
Firm's size<25,
Low educational level,
Job insecurity
Group of people who do not receive compensation for
‘time pressure due to heavy workload
Firm's size>24,
High educational level,
Job security,
Group of people who receive compensation
for physically demanding job
Low educational level,
Self-employed people
Group of people who do not receive compensation for
physically demanding job
High educational level,
Employee
Correlation (Second step)
Health and Reward at Work?
When time-invariant differences are not controlled (Model M1)
A lack of reward at work is correlated with a poor self-assessed health
status.
When time-invariant differences are controlled (Model M2)
A lack of reward at work is not significatively correlated with a poor
self-assessed health status.
Poor self-assessed health status
M1
M2
OR
OR
0.53
(0.07)
***
1.00
ns
(0.19)
=> If the relationship between health and reward at work ‘’exists’’, it is a ‘’long
run’’ relationship.
Analysis of causalities (Second step)
Between Health and Reward at Work
Estimation of the structural model:
CoefficientStandard Err.
(1) Bad self-assessed health status
Reward at work
Time pressure due to heavy workload
Job physically demanding
(2) Reward at work
Firm's size in [25;200[
Firm's size in [200;+[
(3) Time pressure due to heavy workload
Firm's size in [25;200[
Firm's size in [200;+[
(4) Job physically demanding
Firm's size in [25;200[
Firm's size in [200;+[
corr (1,2)
corr (1,3)
corr(1,4)
-0,28
0,11
0,20
0,09 **
0,08 ns
0,09 **
-0,11
-0,05
0,04 **
0,05 ns
0,09
0,16
0,04 **
0,05 ***
-0,06
-0,25
0,04 ns
0,05 ***
-0,01
-0,01
-0,04
0,05 ns
0,05 ns
0,05 ns
Conclusion
Conclusion (1/2)
• Reward at Work and Health of European older workers
We have found no effect of self-assessed health status on reward at
work
=> Productivity of people who stay at work does not seem to be
influenced by their health status
But : Healthy worker biais: if poor health status reduces productivity,
workers will be likely to leave their job => these people won’t be
rerpresented in our sample.
Policy implication: Prevention of health problems would be
efficient to keep older workers in their job
Reward at work impacts health status « on the long run »
Policy implication: Acting on reward at work would improve health
status
Conclusion (2/2)
• Reward at Work and Working Conditions
Our results:
“people are rewarded for time pressure”.
“ people are not sufficiently rewarded for physically demanding jobs”.
And ‘High educational level, at least, are not compensated’
Interpretations?
‘Harmful working conditions in this group are more difficult to
recognize’
‘Employers behaviors: why do they not internalize the impact of
working conditions in this group’
Policy implication: understanding why high educational levels are less
often compensated for risky jobs => employment rate of older
workers in Europe.