Analysing Swedish population register data, the aim of the present study is to investigate differences in acute cardiovascular disease (CVD) in terms of stroke and myocardial infarction incidence between selfemployed individuals and paid employees and to study whether the associations vary by gender or across industrial sectors. A cohort of nearly 4.8 million employed individuals (6.7% self-employed in 2003) is followed-up for hospitalization due to stroke and myocardial infarction (2004–2008). Self-employed individuals are defined as sole proprietors and limited liability company owners according to legal type of their enterprise. Negative binomial regression models are applied to compare hospitalization rates between the self-employed and paid employees, adjusted for socioeconomic and demographic confounders. Two- and three-way interaction are tested between occupational group, industrial sector, and gender. Limited liability company owners have significantly lower hospitalization for myocardial infarction than paid employees. Regarding two-way interaction,sole proprietors have higher myocardial infarction hospitalization in trade, transport and communication, and lower in agriculture, forestry, and fishing than paid employees. Limited liability company owners have lower hospitalization rate for myocardial infarction than employees in several industries. The results highlight the importance of enterprise legal type and industrial sector for CVD among self-employed individuals.

Abstract

Purpose

The increasingly demanding psychosocial working conditions in Swedish public sector workplaces call for implementation of workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions. There is a need to increase first-line public sector managers’ capacities for health-promoting leadership. The purpose of this paper is to investigate first-line managers’ experiences of participating in an intervention aimed at strengthening health-promoting leadership. More precisely, the aim is to study what obstacles and prerequisites the intervention have for their learning processes to become health-promoting managers.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study in Northern Sweden at workplaces in the county council and municipalities was conducted. The data were gathered through individual interviews with 18 participating first-line managers. Inductive-content analysis was used to analyse the data.

Findings

The results identify time for reflection and collegial discussions about leadership as prerequisites for learning about health-promoting leadership. Managers experienced the intervention as a confirmation of the leadership behaviours already gained. However, the health-promoting leadership intervention was seen as a contradiction, since organisational prerequisites to implement WHP measures were perceived to be lacking. The managers were not involved in the planning of the intervention and questioned why the organisation did not involve them more when the educational activities were created.

Originality/value

When the organisation understands how and when its managers learn, what they need and want to learn about WHP, and what they already know, tailored participatory interventions can be facilitated that consider the unique prerequisites for the particular organisation.

Purpose: The study investigates sickness presence, health and work-related factors among female and male managers in Swedish public and private organizations. Research indicate that managers have demanding and conflicting psychosocial working conditions and low replace ability,which may contribute to ill health and high sickness presence. Design/Methodology: The data consists of questionnaire answers from 1173 managers (50% women, 50% men) at different Swedish workplaces. The data makes it possible to compare managers at public and private workplaces and different workplace sizes. Results: The managers express high job satisfaction – 86% of public sector managers and 78% of private sector managers. However, 78% of male managers and 81% of female mangers report sickness presence with different time lengths. In addition, the results indicate differences in sickness presence related to manager positions and workplace sizes. Limitations: The study used self-assessments in a cross-sectional design, which does not allow for causal analyses. However, the data covers different workplaces in different Swedish regions. Research/Practical Implications: In politically ruled public sector organizations, the lack of clarity surrounding a manager’s role,responsibility, and decision latitude may create conflicting demands that contribute to highlevels of job strain and stress. Based on these facts, it is of relevance to contribute to knowledge about differences concerning sickness presence among different manager groups. Based on the results, practical implications at a societal and organizational level will be presented. Originality/Value: This research focus is of importance due to that research shows relations between managersand employees health and working conditions.

Health incidents often result in sickness absenteeism, i.e. the failure to report for work as scheduled. However, there is increasing evidence that workers more and more decide for another option: sickness presenteeism, defined as attending work while ill. This can be problematic for the individual and presenteeism creates costs for organizations and the society as well. European policymakers encourage individuals to become self-employed because it is a way to promote innovation and job-creation. The proportion of self-employed individuals in the employed labour force in Europe is around 15 percent. Most of the self-employed choose to become self-employed and have good working conditions and job quality. However, around 20 percent of the self-employed report that they have no alternative for work and they have lower levels of job quality and worse well-being compared to the former group of self-employed. In addition, earlier studies have indicated that self-employed have a high working pace and work many and irregular hours, indicating that it can be problematic and frustrating to stay at home because of illness. It can be assumed that health and well-being among self-employed and managers in small-scale enterprises is particularly crucial in this enterprise group due to that the smallness make them vulnerable. Self-employed is an interesting category when it comes to the phenomenon of sickness presenteeism. To our knowledge, there are few studies of sickness presenteeism among self-employed.AimThe aim of this paper is to study the occurrence of sickness presence among different groups of self-employed in relation to employees, and to analyze if possible differences between the groups can be explained by different psychosocial working conditions related to work demands and time pressure. Method: This study is based on the fifth European survey on working conditions (EWCS) 2015, which has become an established source of information on working conditions and employment in EU Member States. The independent variable – employment type consists of the categories self-employed (with and without employees) and employees. The main independent variable is sickness presence and is measured by the following question: Over the past 12 months did you work when you were sick (1=Yes, 0=No). Several indicators of work demands, time pressure and background variables are used in the description and regression analysis. Results: Results show that self-employed report a higher level of sickness presenteeism than employed; 52.4 verses 43.6 percent. The mean number of working hours is 43.5 among self-employed and 35.4 among employed. Self-employed have worked in the evenings on average nearly 7 days a month, which is more than twice as many times as for employees. It is also twice as usual that self-employed have worked on a Sunday compared to employees. Self-employed have on average worked in the free time once or twice a month and employees have on average worked on their free time less often. All the differences between self-employed and employed are90clearly significant and indicate a higher level of sickness presenteeism and time pressure among self-employed. The results show that self-employed have a significant higher risk for reporting sickness presence than employed have. This difference is explained by the variables measuring time pressure, which indicates that the self-employed have a higher risk of reporting sickness presenteeism because they experience more time pressure. Other results are that sickness presenteeism differ between groups of self-employed related to gender, company size, motives for self-employment and country groups.

Background: European policymakers encourage individuals to become self-employed because it is a way to promote innovation and job creation. It can be assumed that health and well-being among the self-employed and managers in small-scale enterprises are particularly crucial in this enterprise group because the smallness of the enterprise makes its members vulnerable. Earlier studies have indicated that the self-employed have a high working pace and work for long and irregular hours, indicating that it can be difficult to stay at home because of sickness. The purpose of this study is to investigate the occurrence of sickness presenteeism among the self-employed in relation to the organizationally employed and to analyze whether any differences can be explained by higher work demands among the self-employed. Methods: The study is based on the fifth European survey on working conditions (2010) and includes the northwestern European countries in the survey. The questions cover a wide range of topics designed to meet the European Union's political needs. The main variables in this study are sickness presenteeism and several indicators of time demands. Results: The results show that the self-employed report a higher level of sickness presenteeism than the employed: 52.4 versus 43.6%. All indicators of time demands are significantly related to the risk for sickness presenteeism, also when controlling for background characteristics. Conclusion: The results confirm that the level of sickness presenteeism is higher among the self-employed and that high time demands are a major explanation to this. 

In this article, the authors set out to study the time use of men and women in Sweden, comparing self-employed and employed individuals. Previous studies indicate that there are reasons to believe that both gendered time use and mechanisms related to time use might differ between the self-employed and employees. Employing time use data, the aim was to study whether there are differences in gendered time use between self-employed individuals and employees in Sweden, and furthermore, which mechanism relates to gendered time use among self-employed individuals and employees. The results show that self-employed men and women distribute their time in a more gender-traditional manner than employees. In addition, relative resources are found to be an important factor related to gendered time use among the self-employed. For employees, gender relations tend to be a mechanism related to gendered time use. The conclusion is that working conditions are important for gendered time use and should be considered in future studies.

Seasonal employees at ski resorts represent a high-risk population for the use of alcohol and drugs, as well as other negative lifestyle behaviours. These employees work and live in a context where the customers are on holiday and hence alcohol is used frequently. To our knowledge there is a gap in the literature regarding alcohol and drug consumption among seasonal employees. Particularly studies in the context of ski resorts are lacking. The overall purpose of our study was to evaluate a policy-based intervention at a ski resort area in Sweden. The intervention was led by a project leader together with managers from different tourism industries, the health sector, social service and police. Components in the intervention were e.g. policy development and implementation, education of managers and creation of a manager network.  In total, 48 enterprises participated. A questionnaire, concerning alcohol and drug use and social aspects, was distributed before and after the intervention. The firs questionnaire was answered by 611 (47%) respondents and 423 (34%) respondents the follow-up questionnaire after two years. In addition, five persons in the project group was interviewed after the intervention.  Based on survey data, comparisons before and after the intervention showed several positive results. The  results show a significant reduction of hazardous drinking and an  increased awareness of the companies’ alcohol- and drug policies among the employees. No significant effects on drug consumption were found. The project group reported better knowledge about alcohol and drugs. However, most important was the increased collaboration between managers in tourism industries. The intervention also resulted in new norm breaking ideas such as a sober end of the season instead of the traditional “drinking the bar dry” and managers taking employees out on hiking instead of going out for a beer.

The conclusion is that seasonal tourism industries need to work with hazardous alcohol- and drug consumption from a “whole village perspective”. Successful health promotion work among seasonal employees, needs collaboration between private and public sector and should be related to cultural norms as well as working- and living conditions in the particular context, in this case the tourist resort.