Blue Collar Workers Work Longer and in Worse Health Than Their White Collar Bosses

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110721163029.htm

ScienceDaily (July 21, 2011) — While more Americans are working past age 65 by choice, a growing segment of the population must continue to work well into their sixties out of financial necessity. Research conducted by the Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine looked at aging, social class and labor force participation rates to illustrate the challenges that lower income workers face in the global marketplace.

The study used the burden of arthritis to examine these connections because 49 million U.S. adults have arthritis, and 21 million suffer activity limitations as a result. The condition is also relatively disabling and painful but not fatal. The researchers found that blue collar workers are much more likely to work past 65 than white collar workers and are much more likely to suffer from conditions like arthritis, reducing their quality of life and work productivity.

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At all ages, blue-collar workers in the workforce are in worse health than white-collar workers. By age 65, 19% of white-collar workers with arthritis remain in the workforce compared with 22% of blue-collar workers. But employed blue-collar workers have more severe disease than employed white-collar workers, and look forward to fewer years of healthy life -- approximately 11 for blue-collar workers and 14 for white-collar workers.

The investigators reported that lower-income workers of older age in the service and farming sectors-- two job types that are unlikely to come with pension plans--are more likely to have arthritis than not, with 58% of service workers and 67% of farm workers continuing to work despite struggling with the painful health condition. Sixteen percent of all blue collar workers are over 65 and 47% report they have arthritis. By contrast, 14% of white collar workers work beyond the age of 65, and 51% of these workers reporting arthritis. Overall, approximately 15% of all workers remain in the workforce at or past retirement age, and 44% have arthritis.

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