Bringing Organizations Back in: Going from Healthy Work to Healthy Workplaces

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss how the concept of inequality regimes can contribute to theoretical and methodological advances in occupational health research. We posit the mutual advantages of bringing together feminist intersectional analysis of inequality in working life with studies of working conditions and health. The job demands and control model (JDC) is used as a starting point for the discussion. Reintegration of organizational analysis into studies of working conditions and health is warranted, as organizations influence how working conditions are distributed and individuals are stratified in the labor market. We refer to that development as going from healthy work to healthy workplaces. We discuss how the concept of inequality regimes is open for mixed method analysis and how it can be used as a theoretical framework for unraveling the ways in which inequalities in working conditions and health are (re)created in different types of organizations.