Demographic analysis: Mortality by occupation 2018—2022
Lowest mortality among managers
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2023-09-22 8.00
A new report by Statistics Sweden describes mortality by occupation. For women mortality is lowest among “production and specialized services managers”, such as “IT managers” and highest among “forestry, aquaculture, and fishery workers”. For men, “managers in bank, finance and insurance services” have the lowest mortality whereas “recycling collectors, paper delivery and other service workers” have the highest mortality.
This report describes mortality for persons aged 35-64 years by occupation in the period 2018—2022. Occupation data come from the 2017 Occupational Register, and mortality in the following five-year period is explored. In the analysis all deaths are considered, irrespective of the causes of deaths. This is the second time that Statistics Sweden conducts a report on mortality by occupation based on the Occupational Register.
Lowest mortality among managers
In major occupational groups that normally requires post-secondary education, both women and men have significantly lower mortality than the average. These are “managers”, “occupations requiring advanced level of higher education” and “occupations requiring higher education qualifications or equivalent”. In major groups that normally require secondary education, women and men often have higher mortality. Overall, managers have the lowest mortality while those working in occupations with low or no education requirement have the highest mortality.
A finer classification of occupations shows a similar pattern. For women mortality is lowest among “production and specialized services managers”, such as “IT managers” and highest among “forestry, aquaculture, and fishery workers”. For man “managers in bank, finance and insurance services” have the lowest mortality whereas “recycling collectors, paper delivery and other service workers” have the highest mortality.
Important role of social and economic factors
Social and economic factors are important for mortality. In many occupations, mortality is higher for persons with secondary education than for those with post-secondary education. This also applies to occupations that normally have a lower education requirement and where mortality is generally high. In these occupations, mortality for persons with post-secondary education is not significantly different from the average.
Income is also an important factor for mortality. In all major occupational groups, those with lower annual income have higher mortality than those with higher annual income.
Furthermore, country of birth, household status and previous sick leave absence are also important factors that influence the mortality of different occupations.
Definitions and explanations
The comparison of mortality between different groups is conducted via standardized mortality ratio, or SMR. SMR is calculated as the total observed number of deaths in a group in relation to the expected number of deaths in the group, if the mortality of this group is the same as that of the reference group, which is employed persons in general in this report. If SMR is larger than 1 for a group, it indicates a higher mortality for this group compared with the reference group. If SMR is smaller than 1, it indicates a lower mortality for this group compared with the reference group.
Data used for analysis come from different registers available at Statistics Sweden. Information on occupation is collected from the Swedish Occupational Register. The Swedish Standard for Classification of Occupations 2012, SSYK 2012, is used to classify individuals by the work they do.
Publication
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