If you are a woman and work shifts your chances of enforced early retirement are greater than a woman who is not involved in shift-work or a man who works shifts, says an article in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The findings come from the Danish Work Environment Cohort Study, which started in 1990, and information from the national welfare register – it involved 8,000 male and female employees. Groups from the Cohort Study were formally interviewed about their place of work, work patterns, health and lifestyle.
The were all monitored until they were sixty years old – or until they died or emigrated (whichever occurred first).
253 (8.4%) of the 2,980 women who were included in the study had been forced to retire early because of ill health and had been granted disability pension by June 2006, compared to 173 (4.3%) of 4,025 men. The researchers report that the likelihood of women who do/did shift work requiring a disability pension is 34% greater than men, even after adjusting for factors likely to influence the results, such as lifestyle, including smoking, the workplace environment, and socioeconomic status.
Shift-work has been linked to a raised risk of heart attack, peptic ulcer, sleep disturbance, breast cancer, pregnancy complications, and accidents. However, this study did not look at the reasons for enforced early retirement.
The authors added that why women seem to be more vulnerable is not clear.
“A 15 year prospective study of shift work and disability pension”
Finn Tüchsen, Karl Bang Christensen, Thomas Lund and Helene Feveile
Occup Environ Med. Published Online First: 15 January 2008. doi:10.1136/oem.2007.036525
Click here to view abstract online
Written by – Christian Nordqvist