We recently finished a position paper on Swedish working life research for the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (1). An obvious question was the definition of “working life research”. Searching the literature, we found a plethora of terms used to describe this area and lack of a generally accepted definition. It also became clear that the primary goals of such research varied widely between international organizations and governments. In this paper, our aim is to discuss the definition and goals of working life research.

Key terms discussion paper; prevention; productivity; research; wealth; working life; working life research; worklife; worklife research