BackgroundThe Norwegian specialist health service has undergone many processes of reorganization during the last three decades. Changes are mainly initiated to increase the efficiency and quality of health care serving an ageing population under the condition of a diminishing labour supply. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of reorganization on long-term sickness absence among different levels of hospital staff.MethodsThe study draws on panel data on employees of Norwegian public hospitals in 2005 and 2007 (N = 106,715). National register data on individual employees’ days of medically certified long-term (>16 days) sickness absence were linked with survey measures of actual reorganization executed at each hospital in each year. The surveys, answered by hospital administration staff, measured five types of reorganization: merging units, splitting up units, creating new units, shutting down units and reallocation of employees. The variation in sickness absence days was analysed using random and fixed effects Poisson regression with level of reorganization as the main explanatory variable.ResultsThe fixed effects analysis shows that increasing the degree of organizational change at a hospital from a low to a moderate or high degree leads to an increase in the number of days of long-term sickness absence of respectively 9% (95% CI: 1.03-1.15) and 8% (95% CI: 1.02-1.15). There are few significant differences between employees in different education categories. Only physicians have a significantly higher relative increase in days of long-term sickness absence than the control group with lower tertiary education.ConclusionsIncreased long-term sickness absence is a risk following reorganization. This risk affects all levels of hospital staff.

Background A number of working time arrangements have been linked to negative consequences for both health personnel and their patients. A common hypothesis put forth to explain these findings suggests that certain working time arrangements lead to negative patient consequences due to the adverse impact they have on employee health. The purpose of this study is to use systematic reviews to investigate whether employee health explains the relationship between working time arrangements and patient safety. Methods A systematic literature review was performed including published reviews and original studies from MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Cinahl and Web of Science investigating working time arrangements for healthcare personnel, employee health and patient safety. In addition, we screened reference lists of identified reviews. Two reviewers independently identified relevant publications according to inclusion criteria, extracted findings and assessed quality. Results Six thousand nine hundred thirty papers were identified, of which 52 studies met our criteria. Articles were categorized into five groups according to how they approached the research question: 1) independent analyses of relationship between working time arrangements and employee health, and of working time arrangements and patient safety (5 studies); 2) relationship between working time arrangements on both employee health and patient safety (21 studies); 3) working time arrangements and employee health as two explanatory variables for patient safety (8 studies); 4) combinations of the above analyses (7 studies); 5) other relevant studies (5 studies). Studies that find that working time is detrimental to employee health, generally also find detrimental results for patient safety. This is particularly shown through increases in errors by health personnel. When controlling for employee health, the relationship between working time arrangements and patient safety is reduced, but still significant. Conclusions Results suggest that employee health partially (but not completely) mediates the relationship between working time arrangements and patient safety. However, there is a lack of studies directly investigating employee health as a mediator between working time arrangements and patient safety. Future studies should address this research gap. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-3993-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This fuzzy set analysis does not support Stuckler and Basu's 'crisis-austerity' thesis, as those European countries that experienced recession and austerity were not consistently the countries with deteriorating health. There may be multiple reasons for this result, including analytical approach and operationalization of key concepts, but also resilient forces such as family support. We suggest more research on the topic based on more recent data and possibly other, or more, dimensions of austerity.

This article investigates the probability of turnover to three destinations following hospital mergers:

The fuzzy set ideal-type analysis shows that the European countries position themselves, by and large, in configurations of crisis and austerity in meaningful ways that allow us to explore the "crisis-austerity" thesis by Stuckler and Basu. This exploration is the undertaking of Part II of this paper.

This chapter discusses the relevance of the concept of 'precarity', understood as work conditioned by a lack of security and predictability, in a Nordic context, and links precariousness to both formal work arrangements and to experiences of insecurity. How is precarization of employment expressed in Norway and Denmark? Is the Nordic model resilient to precarization? Framing the discussion in a global perspective, comparable international statistics on frequently used measures of precariousness confirm the image of the Nordic countries as top of the class. The Nordic model of cooperation between the state, strong employers' associations and relatively strong employee unions is often credited as the reason. However, we argue that the Nordic model is continuously subject to renegotiation. Decreasing union density, increasing individualization, increasing inequality and the consequent polarization of working life pose real possibilities of precarization of work also in the Nordic countries.

This paper analyses the effect of hospital mergers on the probability of employee disability retirement, focussing on whether the effect on disability retirement differs with employee educational attainment. I use register data for all employees of Norwegian public hospitals from 2000 to 2006. The analyses employ a difference-indifferences approach using hospital fixed effects. The results show that the probability of entering disability retirement only increases in the second year after the merger compared with non-merger years, indicating that the effect is short-term. Predicted probabilities indicate that the effect is only significant for employees with lower education. Possible explanations are that increased strain in association with the merger leads to disability amongst employees or that managers use disability retirement as a way of achieving staff reductions without formally laying off staff.

This study investigates how work-related consequences of COVID-19 in Norway during the first wave varied between workers in different employment arrangements. The generalised linear model (GLM) regressions estimate the relative risk of being directed to work from home, temporarily laid off, having reduced working time and income loss in a representative sample of 3002 workers. The models compare temporarily employed and self-employed workers with permanently employed workers and workers in voluntary and involuntary part-time positions with full-time workers. Results indicate that the self-employed had a higher likelihood of experiencing reduced working time and income loss. Temporary employment did not entail a higher likelihood of any measured outcomes. Part-time workers had a higher chance of income loss and a lower chance of being directed to work from home than fulltime workers. Results also indicate that employees in part-time positions had a higher likelihood of having reduced working hours. The findings are discussed with perspectives on flexibility, risk and how standard jobs form regulation and welfare policy. Despite the government's efforts to increase the safety nets for new groups of workers, our results indicate that the coverage was not wide enough. Thus, illustrating the individual economic risk inherent in non-standard employment relationships.