title: Health, employment, and economic change, 1973-2009: repeated cross sectional study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To see whether adverse relations between social class, health, and economic activity, observed between 1973 and 1993 and previously identified in a 1996 BMJ paper, were still apparent between 1994 and 2009 despite improvements in the general economic climate and overall population health.
  
  
  METHODS
  Replication of repeated cross sectional analysis from the original paper, using the same source (the General Household Survey) and occupation coding scheme, but extended from the period 1973-93 to 1973-2009, and including women as well as men.
  
  
  METHODS
  Men and women aged 20-59 years in each annual survey between 1973 and 2009.
  
  
  METHODS
  Change over time in class specific rates of employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity within subgroups of respondents.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall employment rates have decreased for men of working age while increasing for working age women. For men in particular, the gradient of these changes seems to depend on occupational group. Over 37 years, the differences in occupational group specific economic inactivity and employment rates between people reporting and those not reporting a limiting long term illness has increased substantially.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Between 1973 and 2009, the relation between good health and securing and sustaining employment has strengthened for both men and women. For men, this has been due to employment rates decreasing and economic inactivity rates increasing among men with poor health. For women, this has largely been due to a general trend of increased employment and reduced economic inactivity occurring among healthier women but not in women of poorer health. Some evidence suggests that, since 2005, the relation between health, employment, and economic inactivity for women in the top two occupational groups has become more like that for men, with poor health becoming associated with reducing employment rates.
authors.affiliation: University of Sheffield, School of Health and Related Research, Sheffield S1 4DA, UK. j.minton@sheffield.ac.uk
authors.forename: Jonathan William
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Minton
authors.forename: Kate E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Pickett
authors.forename: Danny
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dorling
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004651:Employment / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D012737:Sex Factors; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014478:Unemployment / Q000639:trends; D006113:United Kingdom; D014931:Women, Working / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult