Degree project: gender differences in health and work environment data

Background

Employers in the private and public sectors measure health and work environment with employee surveys, health assessments, risk assessments and digital analytics tools. The results form the basis for which measures are prioritised and where the money goes.

But an average for the whole workforce hides differences between groups, and a question worded around one kind of work does not necessarily capture the strain in another. We want to know how well today's tools manage that — and what would need to change in the questions, the reporting or the follow-up.

The assignment

• Map which analytics tools and surveys are actually used in the private and public sectors
• Examine how the questions are constructed: what is measured, what is not, and around which kind of work the questions are written
• Investigate whether and how results are reported by gender — and what happens to the analysis when they are not
• Compare the picture the tools give with what research and official statistics say about gender differences in sickness absence and work environment
• Draw concrete conclusions about what needs to change in the questions, the reporting and the follow-up

We set the exact scope together with you and your supervisor at your university. The method and the scale should fit your course requirements — we have a problem we want to understand, not a finished thesis we want written for us.

We think you

• are studying public health, work science, human resources, psychology, gender studies, statistics or something closely related
• are about to write a bachelor's or master's thesis and are looking for a question with a real audience
• are comfortable reading and critically examining survey design
• have an interest in gender perspectives on working life and health

What you get from us

You get supervision from our specialists in work environment and health data, insight into how the tools are used in practice with employers, and contact with customers in both the private and the public sector.

If the work should require material from real surveys, we agree the arrangements in advance. Information about individuals is never released; what may be possible is aggregated, de-identified material, handled in line with the GDPR and meeting your university's ethical review requirements.