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. 2023 Feb 15;18(2):e0281056.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281056. eCollection 2023.

Working life sequences over the life course among 9269 women and men in Sweden; a prospective cohort study

Katalin Gémes  1 , Katriina Heikkilä  1   2 , Kristina Alexanderson  1 , Kristin Farrants  1 , Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz  1 , Marianna Virtanen  1   3
Affiliations

Working life sequences over the life course among 9269 women and men in Sweden; a prospective cohort study

Katalin Gémes et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate working life courses in women and men and possible associations with socioeconomic, health-, and work-related factors.

Methods: A 15-year prospective cohort study of individuals aged 18-50 in paid work at baseline and answering the Swedish Living Conditions Surveys (2000-2003, N = 9269) and their annual economic activity, using nationwide registers. We used sequence and cluster analyses to identify and group similar working life sequences. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine associations of sex, socioeconomic, health-, and work-related factors with sequence cluster memberships.

Results: We identified 1284 working life sequences, of which 65% represented continuous active (in paid work/studying) states. We then identified five sequence clusters, the largest one with individuals who were continuously active (n = 6034, 65% of the participants; 54% of women and 76% of men) and smaller ones with interruptions of the active state by long-term parental-leave, unemployment, and/or sickness absence/disability pension (SA/DP), or retirement. Women were more likely than men to belong to the "Parental-leave periods" (odds ratio [OR]: 33.2; 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 25.6, 43.1) and the "SA/DP periods" sequence clusters (OR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.4, 2.1), also after adjustment for covariates. In both sexes, low education and poor health were the strongest predictors of belonging to the sequence cluster "Unemployment & SA/DP periods". Predictors of the "Parental-leave periods" sequence cluster differed between women and men.

Conclusions: In a cohort of individuals in paid work at baseline, the majority of women and men worked most of each year although women were more likely to have some interruptions characterized by long-term parental-leave or SA/DP periods than men, independently of socioeconomic, health-, and work-related factors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Heikkilä Katriina and Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz are Academic Editor at the Journal

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. State distribution plots and mean time in different states of future yearly working life sequences over a 15-year period.
Fig 2
Fig 2. State distribution plots of future yearly working life sequences over a 15-year period, among women and men, respectively.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Sequence index plots of the five clusters of working life sequences.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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