Do Work Characteristics Affect Health? Experiences of the Middle-Aged in East Asia

Yean-Ju Lee, University of Hawaii at Honolulu
Yasuhiko Saito, Nihon University
Yi-Li Chuang, Bureau of Health Promotion, Taiwan
Yu-Hsuan Lin, Bureau of Health Promotion, Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to explore the net effects of work characteristics on the health status of middle-aged men and women in three East Asian societies, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. While the effects on health of other socioeconomic characteristics, such as education, income, and wealth, can be measured quantitatively, the relationships between work characteristics and health are harder to standardize. Maybe due to this measurement difficulty, findings on the associations between occupational characteristics and health are limited. This study will use more detailed classifications of occupations than what is often used in the multivariate analysis and will also examine various other work characteristics, such as employment status, firm size, and types of employers, to explore the effects of structural positions on health.