Research into the patterns of working life using data from the compulsory health insurance scheme

Abstract

"The courses of individual people's working lives constitute the object of research into the patterns of working life. In the context of socio-medical research into working life patterns, the health-related consequences of gainful employment and interruptions in it (research into causes of sickness), the consequences of impaired health on the course of working life, (research into the consequences of sickness) as well as interactions between career progression and poor health are examined. Using a progression perspective makes it possible in these analyses to take into account the progressions of illnesses and chronicity processes, to recognise selection effects (e.g. so-called healthy and unhealthy worker effects) and to demonstrate risk accumulation as well as processes of weakening, increasing disability and stabilisation, all of which remain invisible in studies based on cross-sectional data. Agood data basis for many issues, especially in socio-medical research into the pattern of working life, is the personal data of insured members and their benefits recorded by the compulsory health insurance companies (compulsory health insurance scheme data) which accumulates continuously in the course of the administrative processes. This data not only includes progression- related details concerning periods of incapacity for work, stays in clinics and diagnoses, but over and above that also documents important events in the course of working life for the members of health insurance schemes on a longitudinal basis exact to the day. In this article a number of possibilities are shown for analysing relationships between sickness and the course of working life on the basis of health insurance data and these are illustrated using examples of empirical research results. Furthermore the strengths and weaknesses of the information contained in health insurance scheme data for various questions concerning research into the patterns of working life are discussed. Additionally reference is made to some parallels and differences between health insurance scheme data and the microdata from the employment statistics of the Public Employment Service, in particular of the IAB employment sample, as sources of data for the research into the patterns of working life." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Dreyer-Tümmel, A., Behrens, J. & Schulz, D. (1997): Erwerbsverlaufsforschung mit Daten der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 195-207.