Work Ability and Job Survival: Four-Year Follow-Up

Abstract

Background: Employees with impaired work ability might be at higher risk of remaining shorter in the job than those with adequate work ability. The aim of the study was to establish whether work ability plays a role in job survival. Methods: Four-year follow-up (2008–2012) study of 1037 employees of a hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. Work ability was categorized as “adequate” or “impaired”. Employment status at the end of follow-up was categorized as active, resignation or dismissal. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan–Meier method and the Cox proportional-hazards model. Results: About 78.9% of the participants had adequate and 21.1% impaired work ability. Job survival was longer for the participants with adequate work ability independently from the type of job termination (p < 0.001). The odds of job termination were higher for the participants with impaired work ability (p < 0.001) who either resigned (hazard ratio—HR = 1.58) or were dismissed (HR = 1.68). Conclusion: Job survival was shorter for the employees with impaired work ability independently from the type of job termination. It was also shorter for the employees who were dismissed compared to those who resigned. Duration in the job might be extended through actions to enhance work ability.

Aging and the Future of Decent Work

“…The impairment of work ability has negative and interconnected effects for individuals, institutions, and society [20]. Poor work ability is associated with increased absence from work, lower job satisfaction, loss of individual and organizational productivity, performance decrement, decreases in career opportunities, higher unemployment, and earlier retirement and exit from careers and the labor force [3,[21][22][23].…”

“…It is also closely related to health status, which is the basis for sustaining work ability [21]. Factors that compromise health and functional capacity can limit prolonging working life [3,21,24]. Approaches by a number of countries have included raising or intentions to raise retirement ages to encourage individuals to remain at work.…”

“…Workloads (physical, cognitive, and adequate work organization) should be adapted to correspond with the individual ability of each worker and should be reviewed and revised at regular intervals. In addition, leaders should develop systemic guidelines for promoting work ability and professional rehabilitation [3,21,22,24]. Encouraging longer working lives requires addressing the gap between good and bad jobs to ensure we have a population with sufficient good health to make choices about the timing of their retirement [48].…”

“…Widespread population aging across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in many developing and emerging economies represents great achievements in healthcare, medicine, and economic growth, while also introducing new complications [1]. The combination of longer lives, declining birth rates, urbanization, technological changes, and more women entering the workforce have resulted in a rapid change in the age profile of most countries, creating economic challenges [2,3]. Moreover, the impacts of population aging are not equally distributed across countries.…”

Work-life balance predicted work ability two years later: a cohort study of employees in the Swedish energy and water sector

“…Having work ability in a specific sense, is having (some set of) the required manual, intellectual and social competence together with health and the relevant job-specific virtues that are required for managing the specific work tasks. Work ability has been shown to have predictive value for several outcomes, including; productivity [7], sick leave/absence [8,9], job survival [10], work-related disability [11], and mortality [12].…”