Health inequalities are generated by the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. From a life-course perspective, these conditions are formed by complex causal relationships with mutual and intertwined paths between socioeconomic position and health. This study attempts to disentangle some of these processes by examining pathways between socioeconomic position and health across the life-course. We used yearly Swedish national register data with information from over 31 years for two cohorts born 1941-1945 and 1961-1965. We analyzed associations between several indicators of childhood and adult socioeconomic position and health, measured by number of in-patient hospitalizations. We estimated within- and between-person associations using random intercept cross-lagged panel models. The results showed bi-directional associations between socioeconomic position and health that varied in strength across the life-course. Age variations in the associations were primarily observed when individuals aged into or out of age-stratified institutions. In ages where transitions from education to the labor market are common, the associations from health to income and education were strong. Around and after retirement age, the between-person association from health to income was weak, while the association from income to health strengthened. Within-person estimates showed no association between income and subsequent hospitalization among older persons, indicating no direct causal effect of income change on health in this age group. For persons of middle age, the associations were of similar strength in both directions and present at both the between- and within-person level. Our findings highlight the importance of theoretical frameworks and methods that can incorporate the interplay between social, economic, and biological processes over the life-course in order to understand how health inequalities are generated.

Well-being in the workplace is central to sustainable work lives, warranting attention to how (preferred) job qualities matter for job satisfaction. The chapter starts with a description of how work values, job qualities and their matching in eight central dimensions of job quality vary across 24 OECD countries. A novel multidimensional approach to matching between work values and job qualities is proposed, grounded in theoretical expectations of how individuals may prefer several job qualities, to varying degrees. Then the independent importance of matching to job qualities for job satisfaction is assessed—that is, in addition to the direct effects of a wide range of job qualities on job satisfaction. Survey data from the International Social Survey Programme’s Work Orientation Module 2015 are used. Results show how vast majorities strongly value multiple, both extrinsic and intrinsic, value dimensions, but how jobs providing multiple job qualities are generally scarcer, although countries differ greatly in this respect. Importantly, matching to job qualities plays a substantial role for job satisfaction—that is, over and above the direct effects of job quality, where matching to intrinsic job qualities emerges as somewhat more important.

This article aims to provide a comparative assessment of work values across countries as well as over time. Differences and similarities in job preferences for eight central value dimensions are examined across nineteen countries between 1989 and 2015, made possible by four survey rounds from the International Social Survey, Work Orientation modules. Analyses of how extrinsic and intrinsic work values are related to individual and contextual factors are guided by contrasting theoretical approaches—modernization theory and a welfare-state institutional perspective. Four main results are reported. First, secure and interesting jobs are the most preferred job qualities, universally important to nearly all employees throughout all survey years. Second, values are markedly stable over time, but vary more across countries. Third, large majorities simultaneously value work autonomy, high income, advancement opportunities, jobs perceived as useful to society or helpful to others, indicating how individuals generally, are both intrinsically and extrinsically oriented toward work, with some gendered differences. Fourth partly in support of welfare-state institutional expectations, work values differ across countries mostly in relation to economic equality rather than economic development, so that both extrinsic and intrinsic work values are more important in more unequal societies.

Lone parents generally face health disadvantages relating to the well-documented socioeconomic driven health gradient. Comparing 21 European countries, this chapter shows how lone parents’ levels of health are lower as compared to parental couples’ health in all countries compared, except in Austria, but cross-country health differences are substantial. Multi-level analyses indicate higher levels of health in welfare states, where sickness and unemployment insurance are more universally provided. The policy implication is that broadly available social protection provides a health buffer against stress related to common social risks and as such serve as collective resources, beneficial to all parents’ health.

Denne rapporten skildrer den svenske velferdsstatens og det svenske arbeidsmarkedets utvikling fra 1990 og fram mot i dag. Perioden preges av store og avgjørende forandringer på en rekke områder. Lavere organisasjonsgrad og større sosiale forskjeller er to utviklingstrekk ved det svenske samfunnet.

Rapportens ambisjon er å gi en bred beskrivelse av utviklingen basert på tidligere forskning.