Choose your job carefully – it affects far more than what you get paid. In particular, it has implications for your health. That’s what I took away from two papers I read last week.
First, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal risks and sustainability report is more interesting than it sounds. The government’s official forecaster does a great job digging into the far less great 400,000 rise in people not working because of ill health since the pandemic. They show Britain has been getting sicker for some time – certainly pre-Covid – driven by an ageing population and rising mental ill health.
But the real headlines are about who is getting sicker. The increase in those too sick to work is driven by those in lower-earning, customer-facing work (think carers, cleaners or those in sales or leisure) and renters. It’s poorer Britain that is getting sicker.
The second paper is less focused on the UK and reminds us that across the globe your occupation affects the age at which you retire – in large part because of how physically demanding it is (but also how easy it is to keep up with changes or have flexible working arrangements).
The sheer scale of variation stands out: average retirement ages range from 55 to 70 across different occupations in the US. And the authors note that these gaps are so big that the mix of jobs in your economy significantly affects the average retirement age – with implications for how worried governments may be about their ageing populations. This is another reason (beyond “we’d be really poor”) for those nostalgic for many people doing manual labour to think twice.
An agenda for good work should be at the heart of Britain’s economic strategy. And its health strategy, too.
• Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org
