In an editorial published today on the BMJ web site, Professor Mel Bartley of University College London reports an comments on work recently published by Jon Minton of HEDS. Health, employment, and economic change, 1973-2009: repeated cross sectional study reports on work undertaken by Jon, Kate Pickett and Danny Dorling.
The work examined the extent to which the relationship between social class, health and economic activity seen between 1994 and 2009 had changed from that observed in the period 1973-1993. The work showed that the relationship between good health and employment had strengthened for both men and women, albeit for different reasons. For men, this was due to decreases in employment rates for men with poorer health, whilst for women this was due to increases in employment for healthier women. Further details and less cavalier simplifications are available in the BMJ.