What if work is making us sick?
Britain is sick. The number of people claiming disability benefits has doubled in a year. Working-age deaths (that did not involve Covid-19) are on the rise. As Andy Haldane, former chief economist of the Bank of England, put it in a speech recently: “For the first time, probably since the Industrial Revolution . . . health and wellbeing are in retreat”.
The consequences for the country’s economy have been well chewed over. A rising share of people are now too unwell to work, which makes it harder to tame inflation and boost growth. Understandably, then, “How can we get people back to work?” is the question policymakers keep asking. But what if work itself is part of the problem?
By many metrics, work is less dangerous to our health than it used to be, especially in a country like the UK where the manufacturing and mining sectors have shrunk so much. Musculoskeletal disorders, which used to be the biggest cause of work-related ill-health, have declined steadily over the past few decades.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Sarah O'Connor
