Gendered occupational status was an underlying factor explaining distinctive mental health profiles in the working population. Occupational class-dependent behavioural patterns related to mental health existed among men.
In this article we examine transformation of the Finnish employee ideal since the Second World War. Our qualitative analysis is based on the data of 490 job advertisements from 1944 to 2009, and follows the change in employee requirements during this period. Our results show that requirements for transferable, particularly interpersonal, skills increased considerably during the research period. While workmanship, diligence, competence and work experience were the most common employee requirements in the job advertisements of the 1940s and 1950s, employees today are required to possess qualities such as stress resilience, flexibility, productivity, inventiveness and the desire to learn new things. The qualities required of white-collar employees have increased in particular. We conclude that, unlike the post-war period, today the ideal employee is characterized by flexibility and interpersonal skills reflecting changes in the organization of work, work organizations and work culture.
To investigate sickness absence due to mental disorders in human service occupations. Methods Participants (n=1,466,100) were randomly selected from two consecutive national nine-year cohorts from the Statistics Finland population database; each cohort represented a 33% sample of the Finnish population aged 25-54 years. These data were linked to diagnosis-specific records on receipt of sickness allowance, drawn from a national register maintained by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, using personal identification numbers. Results Sociodemographic-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for sickness absence due to mental disorders in all human service occupations combined was 1.76 for men (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.70-1.84), and 1.36 for women (95% CI, 1.34-1.38) compared to men and women in all other occupations, respectively. Of the 15 specific human service occupations, compared to occupations from the same skill/education level without a significant human service component, medical doctors, psychologists, and service clerks were the only occupations with no increased hazard for either sex and the HRs were highest for male social care workers (HR 3.02; 95% CI, 2.67-3.41). Conclusions Most human service occupations had an increased risk of sickness absence due to mental disorders, and the increases in risks were especially high for men.
The effect of flexible work on mental health is not well known. The aim of this systematic review was to assess the effects of employee-oriented flexible work on mental health problems and associated disability. Literature searches were conducted in the PubMed, Scopus, Web of Sciences, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, ProQuest and EconPapers databases from their inception through October-November 2020. Sixteen studies on the associations of worktime control, working from home, or flexible working arrangements with mental health related outcomes were included in the review: one cluster randomized controlled trial, two non-randomized controlled trials, two cross-over studies, and 11 prospective cohort studies. Three reviewers independently assessed the met-hodological quality of the included studies and extracted the data. The included studies differed in design, intervention/exposure, and outcome, so meta-analysis was not carried out and qualitative results were reported. A few prospective cohort studies found that low employees’ control over worktime increases the risk of depressive symptoms, psychological distress, burnout, and accumulated fatigue. One cross-over and a few cohort studies found small beneficial effects of working partly from home on depressive symptoms, stress, and emotional exhaustion. A small number of controlled trials, cross-over or cohort studies found that flexible working arrangements increase employees’ control over working hours, but have only modest beneficial effects on psychological distress, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. This systematic review suggests that employee-oriented flexible work may have small beneficial effects on mental health. However, randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies are needed to identify the health effects of flexible work.
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