Social support at work and in private life was examined as a predictor of disability pension in the population-based Finnish Health 2000 study.

Social support was measured in a nationally representative sample comprising of 3414 employees aged 30 to 64 years. Disability pensions extracted from the registers of the Finnish Centre for Pensions were followed up across 6 years.

Low social support from supervisors was associated with disability pension with an odds ratio of 1.70 (95% confidence interval, 1.21 to 2.38) when adjusted with sociodemographic and health behavior variables. After adjustment for baseline perceived health, the associations between supervisor support and disability pension strongly attenuated.

Low social support from supervisors predicts forthcoming work disability but the relationship is affected by self-reported nonoptimal health at baseline.