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by cletus
2884 days ago
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I think this depends a lot on what type of construction you're talking about and also what trade. Residential SFHs is different to low-rise buildings, which I assume is different again to building high-rise buildings. It also depends on what skill you have. General labourers are likely going to be lifting heavy things a lot but I don't think that's universally true. Bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, tilers, etc all have different profiles. I actually think that for a lot of these kinds of jobs that you could be doing them well into your 50s just fine. Being active makes it easier to stay active. Also, if you do pursue a trade you will likely have apprentices eventually. Part of what they're for is doing the heavy lifting. Experience in construction will eventually open up avenues such as being a general contractor, property inspection, construction management and so on. |
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I wasn't talking about skilled trades. Every electrician or plumber I've ever met, even the ones who only do new work, wouldn't call themselves a "construction worker", or say they worked in construction. I was assuming the article was talking about what the BLS calls "construction laborers", but maybe it was talking about all possible trades involved in construction? I only read the article summary.
>I actually think that for a lot of these kinds of jobs that you could be doing them well into your 50s just fine.
That's likely true for some trades and some people, but from some googling it does look there the risk to your body from working construction is pretty significant. I was able to find a German study of 14k construction workers that said for construction industry as a whole, workers were 1.5x more likely than other blue collar workers to receive a disability pension for musculoskeletal problems, and 1.8 times more likely for accidental injuries. They were over 2x more likely to be disabled from musculoskeletal problems as the general working population.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1741071/