5.5.1. Employment and early retirement

Table 5.9 illustrates the relative risks for employment for a range of diseases. Using the table below, women with diabetes are 12% less likely to be employed compared to women without diabetes. The table also shows that employment opportunities decline when number of chronic conditions increase.

Table 5.9 Relative risks for employment

Risk	Women	Men
Diabetes	0.88325589	0.89607365
Cancer	0.93209881	0.90374231
Lung disease	0.9236277	0.82918811
CVD	0.95836805	0.961559
Stroke	0.82150399	0.80332068
At least one NCD	0.92197521	0.92005564
At least two NCDs	0.83561818	0.82656994

Relative risks for early retirement are shown in Table 5.10. For example, men and women with at least two NCDs are almost 20% more likely to retire early.

Table 5.10 Relative risks for early retirement

Risk	Men and women
Diabetes	NS
Cancer	NS
Lung disease	1.022
CVD	NS
At least one NCD	1.19
At least two NCDs	1.19

Note: ‘NS’ means not significant.