National Working Conditions Surveys in Europe: A Compilation

[Excerpt] Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) has been measuring working conditions across the European Union for the past 20 years. It is a unique instrument for better understanding the quality of work and employment and the factors influencing it. Eurofound is committed to improving further the quality of the EWCS and strengthening its relevance for Eurofound’s tripartite stakeholders. Some of the most important sources of information for the development of the EWCS questionnaire are the national surveys on working conditions. This compilation is a follow-up of a study of working conditions surveys commissioned by Eurofound in 2006 which covered both national and transnational working conditions surveys (Eurofound, 2007). The main goals of this inventory are to: update the background information on existing national working conditions surveys; create a source of basic information from national working conditions surveys related to methodologies, quality control procedures, fieldwork and findings; provide a practical resource for researchers, policymakers, social partners and others with a professional interest in working conditions

Improving working conditions in occupations with multiple disadvantages

Chapter 1 presents the findings of an analysis of data from the European Working Conditions Survey 2010 and the European Labour Force Survey 2013. It contains a comparative analysis of occupations with multiple disadvantages and all other occupations in relation to specific working conditions. Chapter 2 complements these findings with national-level information obtained from contributions from Eurofound’s network of correspondents from the 28 Member States and Norway. The occupations identified by the statistical analysis in Chapter 1 as having multiple disadvantages are associated with poor working conditions in many EU countries. In addition, a small number of other occupations have been identified by the national contributions as having various disadvantages in specific countries. Chapter 3 presents examples of policies and initiatives carried out mainly by social partners and governments at EU and national level with the aim of improving the working conditions of workers in occupations with multiple disadvantages. Because of the sectoral approach of most initiatives, the chapter is structured by groups of occupations normally belonging to the same economic sector. Even though the collection of initiatives does not represent an exhaustive list of all those present in European countries, where possible a ‘policy gap analysis’ has been developed to identify areas of job quality with less coverage by policies for specific occupations or groups of occupations. Finally, Chapter 4 derives conclusions about the situation and future of occupations with disadvantages, offering possible explanatory arguments. A reflection on the contribution of present policies and implications for workers and society in Europe is included. Annex I explains the methodology used in this report. Annex II contains a graph showing the distribution of disadvantaged occupations across sectors. Annex III, which is available on request from Eurofound, contains a table summarising the various policies identified in the contributions from the network of correspondents

Occupation coding during the interview in a web-first sequential mixed-mode survey

Coding respondent occupation is one of the most challenging aspects of survey data collection. Traditionally performed manually by office coders post-interview, previous research has acknowledged the advantages of coding occupation during the interview, including reducing costs, processing time and coding uncertainties that are more difficult to address post-interview. However, a number of concerns have been raised as well, including the potential for interviewer effects, the challenge of implementing the coding system in a web survey, in which respondents perform the coding procedure themselves, or the feasibility of implementing the same standardized coding system in a mixed-mode self- A nd interviewer-administered survey. This study sheds light on these issues by presenting an evaluation of a new occupation coding method administered during the interview in a large-scale sequential mixed-mode (web, telephone, face-to-face) cohort study of young adults in the UK. Specifically, we assess the take-up rates of this new coding method across the different modes and report on several other performance measures thought to impact the quality of the collected occupation data. Furthermore, we identify factors that affect the coding of occupation during the interview, including interviewer effects. The results carry several implications for survey practice and directions for future research

Risk factors for natural menopause before the age of 45: evidence from two British population-based birth cohort studies

Background: Menopause that occurs before the age of 45 and is not medically induced (referred to here as ‘early natural menopause’) affects around one in 10 women and has serious health consequences. These consequences include increased risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and type 2 diabetes.  Methods: We investigate risk factors for the onset of natural menopause before the age of 45 in two population-based prospective cohort studies in Britain: the 1958 cohort following 8959 women and the 1970 cohort following 8655 women. These studies follow women from birth to adulthood, and we use harmonized data on birth and early life characteristics, reproductive health, health behaviour, and socioeconomic characteristics for 6805 women who were pre-menopausal, peri-menopausal or had undergone natural menopause. Of these 6805 women, 3614 participated in the 1958 cohort (of which 368 had early menopause) and 3191 participated in the 1970 cohort (of which 206 had early menopause). Taking a life course approach, we focus on three distinct life stages - birth/early life, childhood, and early adulthood - to understand when risk factors are most harmful. Respecting the temporal sequence of exposures, we use a series of multivariable logistic regression models to estimate associations between early menopause and each potential risk factor adjusted for confounders.  Results: We find that early menopause is influenced by circumstances at birth. Women born in lower social class families, whose mother smoked during the pregnancy or who were breastfed 1 month or less were more likely to undergo early menopause. Early menopause is also associated with poorer cognitive ability and smoking in childhood. Adult health behaviour also matters. Smoking is positively correlated with early menopause, while regular exercise and moderate frequency of alcohol drinking in women’s early thirties are associated with reduced risk of early menopause. The occurrence of gynaecological problems by women’s early thirties is also linked to early menopause.  Conclusions: We demonstrate that characteristics at different periods of life are associated with early menopause. Some of these associations relate to modifiable behaviours and thus the risks of early menopause and the adverse health outcomes associated with it may be preventable.</p

Additional file 1 of Risk factors for natural menopause before the age of 45: evidence from two British population-based birth cohort studies

Additional file 1: Supplemetary material. Risk factors for natural menopause before the age of 45: evidence from two British population-based birth cohort stuides. Harmonised variables used in the analysis (Table 1 Menopause status); classification of women into menopause status (Table 2.1, 2.2 Menopause status); descriptive statistics for all variables included in the analysis for each cohort separately (Table 3 Descriptive statistics); univariate and multivariate study specific (Tables 5,6 Study specific) and pooled (Table 4 Pooled models) regression models