Locked in Permanent Employment—Longitudinal Associations with Depressive and Functional Somatic Symptoms

Objective: To study mental health as a precedent and an outcome of not being in the preferred job (“locked-in situation”). Methods: Longitudinal data from age 16 to 43 were derived from surveys of the Northern Swedish Cohort. Changes in mental health were studied with analyses of variance for repeated measures. Results: Getting out of locked-in situation was associated with improving and getting into locked-in with worsening mental health between age 30 and age 43. The worsening was more pronounced and the improvement less pronounced in white-collar than in blue-collar employees. Poor mental health at age 16 predicted locked-in situation in early middle age. Conclusions: The findings clarify the bidirectional nature of the associations between locked-in situation and poor mental health, as well as the importance of social class in assessing these associations.