Morbidity among older women and men in paid work when aged 66-70 or >70 years, among all and specifically for the health and social care sector; prospective population-based cohort studies

The current demographic changes, with higher proportions of older people in the population and the workforce, imply challenges for healthcare, social care, public health and social security.

Little is known about the associations between paid work and morbidity or mortality among those aged >65-years.The aim is to study morbidity, mortality, and sickness absence among women and men in paid work when aged 66-70 and >70, respectively, generally and specifically for those in the health and social care sector.

Moreover, how this varies with sociodemographics and prior and current diagnosis-specific morbidity will be explored in prospective cohort studies.This interdisciplinary 5-year project will be conducted by a team of senior researchers and a postdoc.

We will use microdata from nationwide registers and include all in Sweden aged 66-70 and >70-years in 2010, 2015, or 2020, respectively (in the 2015 cohort: 588 716 aged 66-70; 1 227 541 aged >70).

They will be followed for 5-years prospectively regarding paid work and diagnosis-specific morbidity and sickness absence.

This will be related to sociodemographics, income, diagnosis-specific healthcare use, medication, sickness absence, and disability pension in the previous 5-years.This project will fill an important knowledge gap regarding who works when aged 66-70 or >70-years, knowledge that will be of increasing importance in handling older patients and older employees, especially in healthcare and social care organisations.