Objective Risk of exit from work is both occupation- and country-specific. This study investigated occupational differences in working life expectancy (WLE) and reasons for working years lost (WYL) among employed workers in three Nordic countries.

Methods We utilized registry-based cohorts of the employed population in Denmark (N=2 383 657), Finland (N=1 266 705) and Norway (N=1 761 166) to estimate WLE for ages 30–65 using the Sullivan method with 2015 data. We further estimated WYL due to sickness absence, unemployment, disability retirement, old-age retirement and other reasons. The analyses were stratified by gender and major occupational group (1st digit in the ISCO-88 code).

Results Occupational differences in WLE and WYL were observed in all countries. The overall pattern across the countries showed that legislators, senior officials and managers and professionals generally had high WLE, while service and sales workers and employees in manual occupations tended to have lower WLE, with employees in elementary occupations performing the worst. Reasons for WYL varied with country. In general, disability retirement was a significant factor in Denmark, unemployment in Finland, and sickness absence in Norway.

Conclusion A similar occupational pattern in WLE was observed across the countries, with some occupational groups consistently showing high or low WLE. However, the magnitude of occupational differences in WLE and the reasons for WYL varied across the countries.

Key terms disability retirement; early retirement; employment; extending working life; Nordic; occupational difference; occupational group; old-age retirement; sickness absence; unemployment; work participation; working life expectancy; working years lost

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