Has the share of the working life expectancy that is spent receiving a partial or full disability pension changed in Finland over the period 2005–2018? A longitudinal register-based study

Objectives The share of the overall working careers that is spent receiving disability benefits is unclear. We examined trends in full-time equivalent working life expectancy (FTE-WLE) among those with and without receiving a permanent full or partial disability pension in Finland, where certain amo...

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Main Authors: Eira Viikari-Juntura, Svetlana Solovieva, Taina Leinonen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMJ Publishing Group 2022-07-01
Series:BMJ Open
Online Access:https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/7/e061085.full
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Summary:Objectives The share of the overall working careers that is spent receiving disability benefits is unclear. We examined trends in full-time equivalent working life expectancy (FTE-WLE) among those with and without receiving a permanent full or partial disability pension in Finland, where certain amounts of work are allowed while receiving these pensions.Design Longitudinal register-based study.Setting Finnish population.Participants Nationally representative 70% samples of the working-age population.Outcome Using the Sullivan method, we examined annual FTE-WLE at age 45, truncated at age 63, in 2005–2018 by disability pension status. Full-time equivalent work participation was based on combined information on annual employment days and work income.Results Compared with those with no disability pension, disability pensioners had a larger relative (full and partial pensioners of both genders) and absolute (male partial pensioners) increase in the FTE-WLE between 2005 and 2018. In 2018, the FTE-WLE of both male and female full disability pensioners was around 3.5 months, being 6 months at its highest in musculoskeletal diseases. The FTE-WLE of partial disability pensioners was around 6.5 and 8 years among men and women, respectively, being around half of the corresponding expectancies of non-pensioners. The FTE-WLE of partial disability pensioners was considerable in musculoskeletal diseases and mental disorders and even higher in other diseases. Full disability pensioners spent a disproportionately large time in manual work, increasingly in the private sector, and partial pensioners in the public sector with lower non-manual and manual work, increasingly with the former. At the population level, the share of the FTE-WLE that is spent receiving a disability pension remained relatively small.Conclusions Increased work participation while receiving a disability pension is likely to have had important implications for prolonging individual working careers but only minor contribution to the length of working lives at the population level.
ISSN:2044-6055