Employment After Traumatic Brain Injury: Differences Between Men and Women

Abstract 

Corrigan JD, Lineberry LA, Komaroff E, Langlois JA, Selassie AW, Wood KD. Employment after traumatic brain injury: differences between men and women.

Objective

To determine whether there are sex differences in employment 1 year after traumatic brain injury.

Design

Prospective cohort.

Setting

Acute care hospitals in South Carolina and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (TBIMS) rehabilitation centers.

Participants

Subjects in the TBIMS national dataset and the South Carolina Traumatic Brain Injury Follow-up Registry who were expected to be working before injury and followed at 1 year postinjury.

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measure

Change in employment from preinjury to 1 year postinjury.

Results

When other measured influences on change in hours worked were held constant, there were significant interactions for sex by age and sex by marital status. Compared with men, women were more likely to decrease hours or stop working, except in the oldest age group (55−64y) in which men were more likely to stop working. For women, there was a pattern showing better employment outcomes as age increased. Decreased employment for women was most evident for married women, who were much more likely to reduce hours or stop working. There was also a tendency for divorced women to be more likely to stop working when compared with divorced men.

Conclusions

These findings run counter to the current literature. Although definitive explanations must await future studies, causal factors arising from differential societal behavior toward women as well as discriminatory attitudes about women and employment deserve further study.

Key Words: Brain injuries, Employment, Rehabilitation, Sex