Occupational prestige and sickness absence inequality in employed women and men in Sweden: a registry-based study

OBJECTIVES: Socioeconomic position has been linked to sickness absence (SA). However, less is known about the role of occupational prestige, a measure of social status afforded by one’s occupation, in SA. We investigated the association between occupational prestige and SA and the distribution of the association in women and men. We also examined the effect of intersections of gender and occupational prestige on SA. DESIGN: Longitudinal. SETTING: A nationwide representative sample of Swedish working population. PARTICIPANTS: 97 397 employed individuals aged 25–59 years selected from the 2004, 2007 and 2010 waves of the Swedish Labour Force Survey and prospectively linked to the Swedish Longitudinal Integration Database for Health Insurance and Labour Market Studies. OUTCOME MEASURES: The number of SA days in any particular year during a 3-year follow-up and long-term (>120 days) SA based on those with at least one sick leave spell during the follow-up. RESULTS: Occupational prestige was weakly associated with SA in the total sample after adjusting for potential confounders. In the gender-stratified analysis, women in lower prestige occupations had higher absenteeism rates than women in high prestige occupations; men in lower prestige occupations had higher odds for long-term SA than men in high prestige occupations. In the intersectional analysis, women regardless of prestige level and men in lower prestige occupations had higher probability of SA compared with men in high prestige occupations. Women in high prestige occupations had the highest absenteeism rates (incidence rate ratio (IRR), 2.25, 95% CI, 2.20 to 2.31), while men in medium prestige occupations had the lowest rates (IRR, 1.17, 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.20). Compared with the rest of the groups, men in low and medium prestige occupations had higher odds for long-term absence. CONCLUSION: There is need to pay close attention to occupational prestige as a factor that may influence health and labour market participation.