Changes in Job Control and Perceptions of General Health: A Longitudinal Analysis of Australian Workers, 2005 to 2017

OBJECTIVE: This longitudinal study of Australian workers explores a possible causal relationship between job control and general health. METHODS: Our sample included 105,017 observations (18,574 persons) over 13 annual waves from working age participants with information on job control, general health, and other sociodemographic and health factors. Three complementary longitudinal modeling approaches were used to explore the causal relationship. RESULTS: There was a strong stepwise, mostly exposure to outcome, relationship between increasing job control and general health. Cumulative exposure to low job control resulted in increasingly worse general health. Taken together, these findings provide good evidence of a causal relationship between low job control and general health. CONCLUSION: This analysis with improved causal inference over previous research showed that change in job control is strongly associated with change in general health.