Worklife and Health in Sweden 2004

Meaningful work in a demanding work environment - teachers at school Månsson, Eva; Persson, Anders Published in: Worklife and healh in Sweden 2004 2005 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Månsson, E., & Persson, A. (2005). Meaningful work in a demanding work environment - teachers at school. In R. Å. Gustafsson, & I. Lundberg (Eds.), Worklife and healh in Sweden 2004 (pp. 319-340). Arbetslivsinstitutet/Arbetsmiljöverket. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Worklife and Health in Sweden 2004 Rolf Å Gustafsson and Ingvar Lundberg (eds.) National Institute for Working Life The National Institute for Working Life is a national centre of knowledge about working life issues. The Institute is commissioned by the Swedish government to carry on research and development, disseminate information, and hold advanced, specialised training courses. The institute’s prime objective and mission is to contribute actively to a working life that offers good conditions and development opportunities for women and men. We work to promote a healthy working environment that is adapted to people’s different physical and mental needs and capacity. This we do in collaboration with the social partners and professionals who are actively involved in issues concerning working life. Our research focuses on areas such as occupational health, the labour market and employment, labour legislation, work organisation, ergonomics and strain, physical and chemical health risks, integration and diversity, and development processes in working life. We endeavour to ensure that our research is multidisciplinary and benefits people in their working lives. Please visit our website www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se for more information. Here you can read about current research, subscribe to our newsletters, borrow books and other literature from our library, order books or download reports. You will also find the addresses to our offices and e-mail links to our 400 staff. © National Institute for Working Life & authors 2005 Original title: Arbetsliv och hälsa 2004 National Institute for Working Life S-113 91 Stockholm, Sweden www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se tel: +46-8-619 67 00 Translation and editing: Hilary Hocking Language & Communications Translators: Anne Cahling, Janet Cole, Mimi Finnstedt and Hilary Hocking Cover: Per Lindström Cover illustration: Kenneth Andersson Type setting: Bärnarp Text & Bild AB ISBN: 91-7045-745-X Printed at: Elanders Gotab, Stockholm, Sweden, 2005 Preface We are pleased to note a clear positive message in the 2004 issue of Worklife and Health in Sweden: the long deterioration in the work environment seen in the 1990s has come to a halt. At the same time there is a negative message, a fly in this ointment in that the problems remain serious. However, the negative trend has stopped, and what is important now is that we work hard to improve the work environment further. We see two worrying trends in the material in this book. One is that types of business with known risks are expanding. An example of this is call centres. The other is that fixed-term employment – project employment – is on the increase. For many people, this type of employment brings stress and a lack of security. We have a powerful tool in the Work Environment Act, which says that work conditions are to be adapted to the physical and mental capacity of each individual. This makes great demands on the adaptation of work conditions so that those who suffer from a disease or have a functional impairment are also able to work. We need to be more systematic in working with the work environment. Corporate health services have an important role to play in creating a good work environment at our workplaces. This book discusses various proposals about what needs to be changed. We hope that these proposals will be useful in the creation of a working life that works for everyone. Inger Ohlsson Kenth Pettersson Director General Director General National Institute for Working Life Work Environment Authority 4 Introduction Sweden is located in the northern part of Europe. As for area Sweden is a relatively large country, 450,000 km2. The Swedish population is small, 9 million, smaller than the population of many of the big cities in the world. Although Sweden is a highly industrialised country, the major part of the working population is employed in private and public services and less than three per cent in agriculture, forestry and fishing. The Swedish economy is highly dependent on exports from manufacturing industries and forestry. Occupational safety and health is an important part of the Swedish political agenda. During the past 30 years, Sweden has had one of the best occupational safety and health records in the world, and has pioneered many efforts in this field. During the last fifteen years, competition arising from increasing globalisation has put Swedish working life under new pressure. Traditional problems of musculoskeletal disorders and noise exposure still exist. Increased work pace has added to occupational stress and made sickness absence a central issue in Swedish working life. The field of occupational safety and health faces new challenges for research, training and development. This anthology was originally written for a Swedish audience, as an overview of the relationship between work and health during the last years. The translation of the anthology to English is hopefully of interest to researchers and policy-makers in other countries, who want to get acquainted with the working life and health developments in Sweden. The anthology raises issues that have been the subject of public debate in recent years. The high levels of sickness absence, reports of growing depres- sion and anxiety, and the almost continuous reorganisations and cutbacks in the welfare services (schools, health care and social services) are examples of situations analysed in this book. The well-known problem of stressful work conditions and low pay in jobs where women are in the majority – and often in subordinate positions – is also studied. The chapters in the book are all based on empirical working life research. This means that the largely negative changes in the work environment over the past ten years are described, but positive trends are also noted and reported. The research reported in the book reflects a multifaceted view of reality, and shows, for example, that serious work environment problems, which have been recognised for a long time, are recurring in new business operations such as call centres. This underlines the need for wide-ranging analysis of how work environment problems arise and are maintained, as well as the importance of ongoing research and evidence based prevention. The objective of the book is to contribute to the analysis of working life and its potential for improvement. On first impressions, the book may well seem to simply list a series of problems. Some would claim that the very description of the problems contributes to a low level of well-being in those involved. If so, this may lead to a sense of hopelessness and a risk of reinforcing negative views of work. In this way, working life research could lead to more sickness absence, unem- ployment and welfare dependency. Research that does not examine real problems, however, will lose its credibility and scientific integrity. We believe that discussions about how to create positive working conditions in various sectors of working life must be based on empirical research and analysis. The anthology follows up and expands on Worklife and Health in Sweden 2000. Our intention is to present current Swedish working life research through recurring publications. The book’s content is equally interdiscipli- nary, since the authors are from various fields and have different experiences. Each author is responsible for the scientific content of his or her chapter, and the chapters were also examined in a series of seminars at which the book’s authors submitted views on each other’s contributions. The editors have also examined the scientific content of the chapters and edited the texts. An overview of the content of the book is to be found at the end of the first chapter, “Changes in working life and new forms of production”. Rolf Å Gustafsson Ingvar Lundberg Professor of Medical Sociology Professor of Occupational Epidemiology National Institute for Working Life National Institute for Working Life Kaj Elgstrand Head International Secretariat National Institute for Working Life Content Preface Introduction part 1. introduction and overview 1. Changes in working life and new forms of production 11 Elisabeth Sundin and Anders Wikman 2. Indicators of changed working conditions 39 Anders Wikman 3. What do the occupational injury statistics tell us? 79 Carin Sundström-Frisk and Jan Weiner part 2. work-related health changes and their indicators 4. Occupational diseases in Sweden in a ten-year perspective 109 Bengt Järvholm 5. Can the psychosocial work environment cause neck and shoulder pain? 131 Bo Melin and Ewa Wigaeus Tornqvist 6.

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