Sedan 1970-talet har villkoren i arbetslivet förändrats till den grad att det finns fog för att tala om ”en industriell revolution”. Det svenska näringslivet har blivit alltmer internationaliserat och beroende av en global marknad. Som en följd av det har kraven på organisationer, fackföreningar, myndigheter och välfärdsstaten att anpassa sig ökat. Därmed förändras också förutsättningarna på arbetsmarknaden och i arbetslivet. Det nya arbetsliv som växer fram är betydligt mer oförutsägbart, skiftat och tävlingsinriktat än tidigare. Denna bok handlar om detta nya arbetsliv och de psykiska och sociala konsekvenserna det för med sig. Boken redogör för och diskuterar nya och flexibla organisationsformer och deras styrinstrument, de förändrade kraven på kunskaper och lärande i arbetslivet, den förändrade relationen mellan arbete och övrigt liv samt de nya förutsättningarna för stress och hälsa. Boken går inte bara igenom aktuella företeelser i samhället och arbetslivet, den redogör även för relevanta kunskaper, begrepp och teorier inom samhällsteori, organisation, socialisation, kognition och stress. Trots den breda utblicken ges en samlad bild av det nya arbetslivet som alltmer oreglerat, heterogent och individualiserat.

Författarna är alla forskare inom området och boken bygger delvis på erfarenheterna från ett omfattande forskningsprogram om nya arbetsvillkor. Gränslöst arbete är tänkt att använda som kurslitteratur på universitet och högskolor inom såväl psykologi, pedagogik och sociologi som företagsekonomi. Boken kan även läsas av alla som är intresserade, och kanske drabbade, av villkoren i det nya arbetslivet.

Translated and adapted from a Swedish original, Work without Boundaries: Psychological Perspectives on the New Working Life tackles the human impact of the changing nature of work. It brings together strands of research from a variety of disciplines including work psychology, occupational health psychology, social psychology, and psychobiology. Written by two leading international researchers and writers in this field, Work without Boundaries delivers new levels of understanding in the field and charts the way forward for future research.

Boken anlägger ett brett perspektiv på individen i arbetslivet som spänner över både arbets- och organisationspsykologi. Författarna tar upp de ramar som modernt arbetsliv skapar och hur individen rör sig innanför dessa. De beskriver arbetets roll i livet, samspelet på arbetsplatsen och vilken betydelse det kan ha för individen. Likaså behandlas fenomen som organisationsförändringar, ledarskap och motivation. Författarna har en gedigen erfarenhet av undervisning och forskning inom ämnet vilket gör boken både pedagogiskt upplagd och uppdaterad inom de senaste rönen. Boken är skriven för studerande i psykologi och beteendevetenskapliga utbildningar samt i företagsekonomi med organisationsinriktning. Boken är även lämplig för HR-specialister, chefer och andra med intresse av hur samspelet mellan individ och organisation bidrar till att skapa hållbara arbetsvillkor och effektiva organisationer.

The aim of the present study was to investigate Type A behavior as well as perceived work situation, and associations with burnout and work engagement. The associations in focus were investigated through hierarchical regressions in a sample (N = 329) of Swedish Information Communication Technology consultants. The findings indicated that both work situation and Type A behavior was correlated with work engagement and burnout; however, no interactions between Type A behavior and work situation were elicited. The main conclusion was that the achievement striving aspect of Type A behavior appears as ""non-toxic"" and is related only to work engagement. However, the irritability/impatience aspect appears to be responsible for burnout complaints among Type A individuals, possibly through negative effects of the mood itself than through perceived stress at work.

Although research on and models of career patterns often are implicitly assumed to be of general validity, they are usually coloured by their cultural, ethnical, and historical background and - until recently - by a lack of gender perpective. A review of research on women and career development (Philips & Imhoff, 1997) concluded that research in the recent decade took important steps but that critical gaps still remain. One such gap concerns changes and transitions in women's careers. The general aim of this paper is to describe career patterns over the life course of women born in the 1950s - in terms of shape, level, and stability. Data were taken from work histories in the interviews of a sample of Swedish women aged 43 (n=109) as part of a longitudinal study. Career patterns were plotted based on life events related to education, family, and work. Results revealed relative stability of labour force participation, but not of work hours over the life course. Career progress in terms of moving to higher career levels was a common feature of the cohort. However, continuous full-time work (from 16 until 43) was highly unusual and almost entirely limited to women with no children.

Swedish (and Nordic) patterns of work in old age display a large proportion of males and females 55+ gainfully employed, but a fairly low level of bridge employment. A partial explanation is found in the basic state pension to all with an addition based on years of work and part- vs. fulltime employment. Recently, work after 65 yrs increased, primarily among individuals with an academic education. Furthermore, women with a non-continous and part-time carreer, usually with a lower income, need to continue working in order to increase their pension. Other motivational factors and recent modification of legislative policies are discussed.

This chapter gives a brief presentation of the department of psychology during fifty years with a focus on features characteristic of the psychology discipline and its development in Stockholm university. Major themes concern strong research areas over the five decades, the growth in volume of education, and the emergence of training of professional psychologists.

This volume is the result of a symposium held in April 2018 focusing on parts of the early history of Swedish academic psychology as it evolved mainly from the middle of the 20th century. Two pioneers, Gösta Ekman at Stockholm University and Gunnar Johansson at Uppsala University, were highly influential in establishing the discipline of psychology in Sweden, and the texts of this volume represent developments which can be traced back to their work in the fields of perception and psychophysics. Following Ingemar Nilsson’s introductory presentation of Johansson and Ekman, their former students and collaborators describe how their early research experiences at Uppsala and Stockholm served as a platform for their own research work and future orientation. Claes von Hofsten, Sverker Runeson, Erland Svensson and Peter Juslin describe such a develop- ment originating at Uppsala and Yvonne Wærn, Ola Svenson, Tommy Gärling, Åke Hellström and Henry Montgomery the development originating in Stockholm. Their texts exemplify widely varying research specialities and applications, ranging from infants’ perception of movement, spa- tial perception of urban environments, risk perception, decision making in air pilot performance, human-computer interaction, and traffic and nuclear safety. Finally, Karl Halvor Teigen provides a neighbour’s commentary to the Swedish development.

This chapter reviews the early development of what has been called the Stockholm school of biopsychosocial stress research. This development was facilitated by world-leading endocrinological research at the Karolinska Institute, later rewarded by a Nobel prize to Ulf von Euler. Pioneering work by psychologist Marianne Frankenhaeuser and public health sicentist Lennart Levi explored the interaction between the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline on the one hand and cognitive behavior and emotional reactions on the other. Studies of the etiology of stress-related ill health followed, and later research programs have used experimental designs, field studies, surveys, and epidemiological methods for the identification of determinants and consequences of work-related stress.

This chapter considers current societal and organizational transitions that tend to affect the stress and health of individuals in paid employment. It is claimed that new stressors are substituted for those that characterized the industrial era, whereas stress in terms of a biopsychosocial process remains unchanged. New stressors emerge as a consequence of factors such as globalized economies and rapid diffusion of information and communication technology. Examples of emerging conditions are the fact that work may be performed anywhere and at any time, that increased speed of communication increases work intensity, and that parallell activities and frequent interruptions increases mental work load.

Objective: Work settings with high levels of stress are consistently associated with poor health outcomes. This study examines the longitudinal relationships between the number of hours of driving a bus in a city and blood pressure and musculoskeletal problems. Methods: A prospective longitudinal design coupled with multilevel random coefficient modeling was used to examine the relationship among exposure to a job with high level of stress, urban bus driving, blood pressure, and musculoskeletal problems. Baseline blood pressure and musculoskeletal symptoms of men and women (n = 88) were assessed before they began driving a bus in central Stockholm. The number of hours of driving per week, blood pressure, and musculoskeletal symptoms were tracked for a period of 5 years. Multilevel random coefficient modeling techniques were used to model how individual trajectories of health effects were affected by the number of hours of driving, after statistically controlling for baseline preworking health measures. Results: Controlling for sex and baseline health outcomes, the average number of hours of bus driving per week predicted higher diastolic blood pressure (B = 0.069, standard error = 0.034, p =.042) and more frequent musculoskeletal symptoms (B = 0.013, standard error = 0.003, p < .001). Conclusions: The findings provide evidence for a positive association between the number of hours of bus driving and blood pressure and musculoskeletal problems. These findings are discussed in exposures to potentially toxic physical and psychosocial work-related factors.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if and how health and well-being in mid-life are influenced by the ways in which individuals have combined educational, occupational, and family involvement throughout their adult lives. Lifecareer patterns (LC) and occupational career patterns (OC) were retrieved from a longitudinal cohort of Swedish women born in the 1950s. Retrospective occupational biographies retrieved at age 43 generated nine LC and 10 OC patterns which served as the basis for the present study. LC patterns combined timing, ordering, duration, and content of activities (e.g., education, work, and parenthood), while OC patterns considered occupational level and its stability over time. Data on life and job satisfaction, psychological well-being, work-family conflict, optimism, and mental distress were collected at age 49. For a sub-sample of the women who took part in a medical examination, seven biomarkers were combined into a measure of allostatic load (AL). The results showed that LC pattern-groups differed significantly but modestly in four aspects of health and well-being whereas OC pattern-groups displayed significant between-group differences in all outcome variables except life satisfaction. The results are interpreted in terms of a social-health gradient effect and a supportive societal context of the Swedish welfare state, which offered a considerable amount of free choice to the women in the cohort.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if and how health and well-being in mid-life are influenced by the ways in which individuals have combined educational, occupational, and family involvement throughout their adult lives. Life-career patterns (LC) and occupational career patterns (OC) were retrieved from a longitudinal cohort of Swedish women born in the 1950s. Retrospective occupational biographies retrieved at age 43 generated nine LC and 10 OC patterns which served as the basis for the present study. LC patterns combined timing, ordering, duration, and content of activities (e.g., education, work, and parenthood), while OC patterns considered occupational level and its stability over time. Data on life and job satisfaction, psychological well-being, work–family conflict, optimism, and mental distress were collected at age 49. For a sub-sample of the women who took part in a medical examination, seven biomarkers were combined into a measure of allostatic load (AL). The results showed that LC pattern-groups differed significantly but modestly in four aspects of health and well-being whereas OC pattern-groups displayed significant between-group differences in all outcome variables except life satisfaction. The results are interpreted in terms of a social-health gradient effect and a supportive societal context of the Swedish welfare state, which offered a considerable amount of free choice to the women in the cohort.

Arbetet som bussförare i citytrafik har under lång tid utgjort en ändamålsenlig modell för forskning om stressrelaterad ohälsa. Artikeln beskriver orsaker till detta, ger en kort översikt över forskningen samt presenterar åtgärder som vidtagits utifrån forskningsresultaten. Gunnar Aronsson genomförde tidigt studier av lokaltrafikens psykosociala arbetsmiljö och skapade på så sätt ett förtroende inom branschen för de kunskaper och insikter stressforskningen kunde bidra med för att förbättra arbetsförhållandena.

The aim of this prospective study was to explore predictors of objective career success among Swedish women and men, focussing on gender differences. Data were drawn from the 2008 and 2010 waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) with a total of 3670 female and 2773 male participants. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for job promotion and an above-average salary increase between 2008 and 2010 were obtained through binary logistic regression analyses. Individual and organisational factors measured in 2008 were used as predictors in analyses stratified by sex. Mutual adjustment was performed for these variables, as well as for labour market sector and staff category at baseline. In both sexes, younger age predicted both job promotion and an above-average salary increase. Job promotion was also in both sexes predicted by being part of decision-making processes, having conflicts with superiors, and being eager to advance. Furthermore, promotion was predicted by, among men, being educated to post-graduate level and having an open coping strategy and, among women, working >60 hours/week. An above-average salary increase was predicted in both sexes by having a university education. Postgraduate education, having children living at home, and being very motivated to advance predicted an above-average salary increase among women, as did working 51-60 hours/week and being part of decision-making processes in men. Gender differences were seen in several predictors. In conclusion, the results support previous findings of gender differences in predictors of career success. A high level of education, motivation to advance, and procedural justice appear to be more important predictors of career success among women, while open coping was a more important predictor among men.

Background: Higher occupational status has consistently been shown to be associated with better health, but few studies have to date examined if an upward change in occupational status is associated with a positive change in health. Furthermore, very little is known about whether this association differs by sex. Methods: Data were derived from four waves (2008-14) of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH), a follow-up study of a nationally representative sample of the Swedish working population. The present study comprises 1410 men and 1926 women. A dynamic panel model with fixed effects was used to analyse the lagged association between job promotion on the one hand and self-rated health (SRH) and symptoms of depression on the other. This method allowed controlling for unobserved time-invariant confounders and determining the direction of causality between the variables. Multigroup comparisons were performed to investigate differences between the sexes. Results: The results showed that job promotion was associated with decreased subsequent SRH and increased symptoms of depression among both men and women. Women reported a larger relative worsening of self-rated health following a job promotion than men and men reported a larger relative worsening of depression symptoms. There was limited evidence that SRH and symptoms of depression were associated with subsequent job promotion. Conclusions: The present study indicates that a job promotion could lead to decreased SRH and increased symptoms of depression in a 2-4-year perspective. Associations appear to differ for women and men.