14 DAY TRIAL // A growing body of evidence is beginning to suggest that the satisfaction people feel at the workplace is directly linked to their longevity. The research does not analyze the way individuals feel about the tasks they have to do, but focuses on the relationships between co-workers.
In other words, it's the development of a strong, solid peer network that apparently allows people to live longer, by providing them with social support when they need it most. In real life, many people spend more time with their colleagues at work than they do at home with their families.
In a new study, experts determined that people between the ages of 38 and 43 were the most likely to experience the positive effects of this kind of social support. This age group showed the highest reduction in the risk of premature mortality, experts say.
The same protective effect extended over men who felt that they were in a position of authority and control at the workplace. What experts found interesting was that the same type of position increased the risk of mortality among women.
The research team, which is based at the Tel Aviv University, in Israel, published its discoveries in the May issue of the journal Health Psychology, which is edited by the American Psychological Association (APA).
For this study, the researchers had access to the medical records of about 820 adults. All participants were followed for two decades, between1988 and 2008, PsychCentral reports. These people were employed by the finance, insurance, public utilities, health care and manufacturing industries.
Peer “social support, which could represent how well a participant is socially integrated in his or her employment context, is a potent predictor of the risk of all causes of mortality,” the team explains.
The amount of support the people got was analyzed based on questionnaires applied to test subjects. Each of them was asked whether colleagues at work were helpful in solving problems, and whether they were, generally speaking, friendly or not.
Arie Shirom, PhD, the lead researcher on this investigation, said that workplace control was dangerous to women, but not for men, because blue-collar-type jobs have positions of control generally held by men. Most participants in the study were blue-collar workers.
“Providing partial support to our finding, a past study found that for women in blue-collar jobs, having low levels of control does not increase their risk of becoming ill with stress-related disorders,” the expert elaborates.