Social support, network heterogeneity, and smoking behavior in women: The 10-town study

Purpose. Examine the associations among social support, network heterogeneity, and smoking behavior in a large sample of Finnish female municipal employees.

Job Strain as a Risk Factor for Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity: An Individual-Participant Meta-Analysis of Up to 170,000 Men and Women

Unfavorable work characteristics, such as low job control and too high or too low job demands, have been suggested to increase the likelihood of physical inactivity during leisure time, but this has not been verified in large-scale studies. The authors combined individual-level data from 14 European cohort studies (baseline years from 19851988 to 20062008) to examine the association between unfavorable work characteristics and leisure-time physical inactivity in a total of 170,162 employees (50 women; mean age, 43.5 years). Of these employees, 56,735 were reexamined after 29 years. In cross-sectional analyses, the odds for physical inactivity were 26 higher (odds ratio 1.26, 95 confidence interval: 1.15, 1.38) for employees with high-strain jobs (low control/high demands) and 21 higher (odds ratio 1.21, 95 confidence interval: 1.11, 1.31) for those with passive jobs (low control/low demands) compared with employees in low-strain jobs (high control/low demands). In prospective analyses restricted to physically active participants, the odds of becoming physically inactive during follow-up were 21 and 20 higher for those with high-strain (odds ratio 1.21, 95 confidence interval: 1.11, 1.32) and passive (odds ratio 1.20, 95 confidence interval: 1.11, 1.30) jobs at baseline. These data suggest that unfavorable work characteristics may have a spillover effect on leisure-time physical activity.

Women's Nightwork :deregulation as a straight road to equality?

The book considers the question whether the traditional prohibition of nightwork for female manual workers could be defended against EU (then: EEC) discrimination law requirements and against the German constitution itself. While I was working on the PhD, German labour law still prohibited manual workers (but not white collar employees, or nurses, or policewomen) from working nights. Just before the thesis was published, the German constitutional court held that the prohibition indeed violates the Constitution, but that it must not be repealed without providing for specific protection against health risks ensuing from night work. The Court thus mainly confirmed the thesis' results. The thesis first considers the history of the legislation (which was based on an ILO convention), and discusses the social and health risks related to night work. It then comes to the conclusion that gender roles imply that women are at a greater risk when working nights, but that there is no biological justification (except during pregnancy of course). The thesis further develops a recommendation, based on the constitutional welfare states principle and the constitutional protection of health, to not just abolish the prohibition, but to provide uplevel equalisation of working conditions for women and men. This was the first time I also tried to work comparatively (not perfect at all), but I have certainly improved since then. An English summary of the thesis was published in the 3rd issue of the Cardozo Women's Law Journal 1996, which was also my first ever publicatin in English