Economy and job contract as contexts of sickness absence practices: revisiting locality and habitus

Abstract

This study revisits two Finnish local governments—Raisio and Nokia—that in an earlier study showed different sickness absence rates in the early 1990s. The locality difference was interpreted sociologically, within a framework inspired by Bourdieu's theory of social field, habitus and practice. The same framework is applied in the present study, starting out from the hypothesis that a constant historical and cultural locality context tends to reproduce prevailing sickness absence practices. The hypothesis was tested by extending the context beyond the locality to the macroeconomic fluctuations that occurred during the 1990s and to the type of employment contract. In both localities a 30% rise was observed in levels of sickness absence from 1991–1993 to 1997–2000. At the beginning of the 1990s the absence rate among permanent employees was 1.86 times higher in Nokia than in Raisio; at the end of the decade the corresponding rate ratio was 1.88. The absence rates were significantly lower among fixed-term employees than permanent employees, but the locality difference was seen in their case, too. Both results support the hypothesis. In spite of major changes taking place in the national economy, the differences between the two towns’ sickness absence rates persisted, which in this particular case probably reflects the persisting working-class character of Nokia and middle-class character of Raisio. The theory also applies to the difference between permanent and fixed-term employees: the peripheral power position of the latter on work related social fields leads to the observed practices, i.e. to the relatively low absence rate. The results of our revisit give reason to recapitulate and elaborate upon our theoretical interpretation with a view to deepening our understanding of the social origins of sickness absence practices in the post-industrial workplace, which is characterised by increasing atypical employment and growing job insecurity.

Introduction

This study follows up on an earlier investigation of ours (Virtanen, Nakari, Ahonen, Vahtera, & Pentti, 2000) which suggested a sociological interpretation for the variation observed in sickness absence figures between three Finnish local governments in 1991–1993. During those years, the Finnish national economy plunged into deep recession. Towards the end of the 1990s, the economy recovered to show rapid growth. At the same time, employment patterns became more flexible, and fixed-term and other atypical jobs increased. These changes gave reason for us to revisit the sickness absence registers of these local governments and to extend the context of interpretation beyond the locality, to the economic situation and to the type of employment contract.

This article begins by describing these new contexts and recapitulates the locality context as analysed in our earlier study. The middle section presents the results for sickness absences from 1991 to 2000. Finally, we return to our interpretation inspired by Bourdieu's sociological theory, aiming to elaborate upon it in the light of the new results.