Job demands and job control as correlates of early retirement thoughts in Finnish social and health care employees

• Published in: Work and stress Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 84 - 92
• Main Authors: Elovainio, Marko, Forma, Pauli, Kivimäki, Mika, Sinervo, Timo, Sutinen, Risto, Laine, Marjukka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2005; Taylor & Francis
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Disability; disability pension; Early retirement; Finland; Health care; health care employees; Health staff related problems. Vocational training; job control; job demands; Labour market; Medical sciences; Mental health; Pensions; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; psychosocial factors; Retirement; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Social work; Supply and demand; Working conditions; Europe; Finland; Human; job control; Attitude; Health staff; Mental health; Psychosocial factor; social work; health care employees; psychosocial factors; Motivation; Early retirement; Social worker; disability pension; job demands; Retirement; Public health
• ISSN: 0267-8373; 1464-5335
• DOI: 10.1080/02678370500084623

Given the ageing workforce, there is an increasing interest in understanding the retirement process. This study examined whether early retirement thoughts can be explained by job demands, job control and their interaction, a hypothesis derived from the job demand-control model of Karasek ( 1979 ). The moderated hierarchical regression analyses of early retirement thoughts were based on a sample of 274 male and 2798 female employees aged 20 to 65 years in Finnish social and health care. Our results suggest that job demands and job control are independent predictors of early retirement thoughts even when adjusted for age, gender, educational level and self-rated health. Furthermore, our results offered support for the interaction effect of job demands and job control on early retirement thoughts. Among people over 45 years old, these associations were even stronger, compared to the whole sample. This indicates that one way to reduce the number of people taking early retirement would be to put the emphasis on psychosocial factors, such as job control, affecting the older workers.