Background

Sickness absence and low social
class are important predictors of disability retirement (DR). Social
class is associated with the duration and the cause of work disability;
those with the lower social class often have longer sickness absence
(SA) histories and more severe illnesses. However, it is unclear how the
length and the diagnosis of SA together predict DR, especially in
different social classes, which is where this paper seeks to find an
answer.

Methods

We apply Cox regression
model on multiregister data from The Social Insurance Institution of
Finland, Finnish Centre for Pensions and Statistics Finland. Our data
consists of 25-62 years old Finns, who were not on any pension at the
end of 2006 (N = 1,727,644). Information on socio-demographic factors
was from the year 2006. Social class was measured as occupational class.
Information on SA spells and their diagnoses were measured at the end
of the year 2005, and the spells were divided in five categories
according to the length of accumulated SA days, separately for each
diagnostic group. The follow-up period for DR started after a “wash-out
period” of one year, in 2007 and ended at the end of the year 2014. The
analyses were conducted separately for men and women.

Results

Our
preliminary results show that the more SA days the participants had,
the higher was the risk of DR. Occupational class differences in the
risk of DR were clear, and they changed as the SA days accumulated.
Further, the risk of DR varied depending on the diagnosis of SA and the
association was different for different occupational classes

Conclusions

More
attention should be paid on how the work disability pathways differ
among occupational classes. Special resources should be targeted to
those outside labour markets. More allocated interventions should be
conducted to reduce work disability and health inequality more
efficiently.