HEALTH COMPLAINTS AND WORKING-CONDITIONS EXPERIENCED IN RELATION TO WORK AND AGE

Objectives-The main objective is to describe the potential health and work problems of the aging employees in the Dutch working population. In this way, we can identify groups at extra risk of specific health p roblems. Methods-In The Netherlands, occupational health services gath er questionnaire data about work and health as part of periodical occu pational health surveys (POHSs). These data from the POHSs of complain ts about health and working conditions, aggregated into occupational g roups and age categories, are used to provide indications for groups a t extra risk of specific health problems. These problems are assessed by overviews of the relation between age and complaints about health a nd working conditions. Results-Almost all of the health questions show an increase in health complaints with increasing age. White collar wo rkers, especially the high grade white collar workers, usually have lo wer complaint percentages on health questions than blue collar workers . Female employees have relatively high complaint percentages on the h ealth questions. Differences between occupational groups in the compla ints about work and working conditions reflect the differences in work demands between generally inconsistent and weak. The complaint percen tages on work questions of female employees tend to be equal to or low er than those of the male employees. Conclusions-The absence of a clea r Netherlands increase of work complaints with advancing age in the pr esence of a decrease in health and working capacity may be explained b y a selective turnover in the working population, especially in demand ing occupations. To enhance the work participation of older employees it may be necessary to reduce the work demands and to increase decisio n latitude.