IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v44y2013i3p1673-1695.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can sickness absence be affected by information meetings? Evidence from a social experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Per Johansson
  • Erica Lindahl

Abstract

During the last decade several empirical studies have stressed the importance of norms and social interactions for explaining sickness-absence behavior. In this context, public discussions about the intentions of the insurance, and of the rights and duties of the receivers, may be important for reducing the sickness absence. In this article, we study whether information meetings about the Swedish sickness insurance affect the length of sickness-absence spells. The study is based on experimental data on individuals with weak labor market attachments. The displacement of when the call to the meeting was sent out was randomized. Comparing the survival functions of those called immediately with those whose calls were delayed (by about 30 days) makes it possible to study whether the length of sickness absence is affected by receiving the call earlier. The result suggests that the length is reduced by, on average, 20%. In the long term (12 months later), there is no effect of the information meeting. This suggests that attendance to the information meeting does not change individuals’ long-term behavior. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Per Johansson & Erica Lindahl, 2013. "Can sickness absence be affected by information meetings? Evidence from a social experiment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1673-1695, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:44:y:2013:i:3:p:1673-1695
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-012-0593-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00181-012-0593-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-012-0593-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henningsen, Morten, 2006. "Moving between Welfare Payments. The Case of Sickness Insurance for the Unemployed," Memorandum 04/2006, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2003. "Social Norms and Welfare State Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 533-542, 04/05.
    3. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg, 2006. "Raising Children to Work Hard: Altruism, Work Norms, and Social Insurance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1473-1503.
    4. Lindbeck, Assar & Persson, Mats, 2010. "A Continuous Theory of Income Insurance," Seminar Papers 763, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    5. Rosholm, Michael & Svarer, Michael, 2004. "Estimating the Threat Effect of Active Labour Market Programmes," IZA Discussion Papers 1300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Andrea Ichino & Giovanni Maggi, 2000. "Work Environment and Individual Background: Explaining Regional Shirking Differentials in a Large Italian Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 1057-1090.
    7. Frolich, Markus, 2007. "Nonparametric IV estimation of local average treatment effects with covariates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 35-75, July.
    8. Caroline Hall & Laura Hartman, 2010. "Moral hazard among the sick and unemployed: evidence from a Swedish social insurance reform," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 27-50, August.
    9. Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002. "Labor supply effects of social insurance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392, Elsevier.
    10. Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per & Nilsson, Peter, 2009. "Sick of your colleagues' absence?," Working Paper Series 2009:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    11. David H. Autor & Mark G. Duggan, 2006. "The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 71-96, Summer.
    12. Laura Larsson, 2006. "Sick of Being Unemployed? Interactions between Unemployment and Sickness Insurance," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(1), pages 97-113, March.
    13. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith & Mark C. Berger & Brett J. Noel, 2003. "Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective Than the Services Themselves? Evidence from Random Assignment in the UI System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1313-1327, September.
    14. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    15. Karlström, Anders & Palme, Mårten & Svensson, Ingemar, 2008. "The employment effect of stricter rules for eligibility for DI: Evidence from a natural experiment in Sweden," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2071-2082, October.
    16. Lars Pico Geerdsen, 2006. "Is there a Threat Effect of Labour Market Programmes? A Study of ALMP in the Danish UI System," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 738-750, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2018. "Social Insurance and Health," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Health Econometrics, volume 127, pages 57-84, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Pathric Hägglund & Per Johansson & Lisa Laun, 2020. "The Impact of CBT on Sick Leave and Health," Evaluation Review, , vol. 44(2-3), pages 185-217, April.
    3. Alpino, Matteo & Hauge, Karen Evelyn & Kotsadam, Andreas & Markussen, Simen, 2022. "Effects of dialogue meetings on sickness absence—Evidence from a large field experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Barbara Hofmann, 2014. "Sick of being “Activated?”," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1103-1127, November.
    5. Per Engström & Pathric Hägglund & Per Johansson, 2017. "Early Interventions and Disability Insurance: Experience from a Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(600), pages 363-392, March.
    6. Markussen, Simen & Røed, Knut & Schreiner, Ragnhild Camilla, 2015. "Can Compulsory Dialogues Nudge Sick-Listed Workers Back to Work?," IZA Discussion Papers 9090, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Nina Granqvist & Pathric Hägglund & Stina Jakobsson, 2017. "Caseworkers’ attitudes: Do they matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1271-1288, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Ljunge, 2012. "The Spirit of the Welfare State? Adaptation in the Demand for Social Insurance," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 187-223.
    2. Hägglund, Pathric, 2011. "Are there pre-programme effects of active placement efforts? Evidence from a social experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 91-93, July.
    3. Henningsen, Morten, 2008. "Benefit shifting: The case of sickness insurance for the unemployed," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1238-1269, December.
    4. Knut Røed, 2012. "Active social insurance," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Hartman, Laura & Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per, 2013. "Effects of eligibility screening in the sickness insurance: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 48-56.
    6. Røed, Knut, 2012. "Active Unemployment Insurance," IZA Policy Papers 41, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?," Papers EC1, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Guillaume Blache, 2011. "Active labour market policies in Denmark: A comparative analysis of post-program effects," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 11071, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    9. Graversen, B.K. & van Ours, J.C., 2006. "How to Help Unemployed Find Jobs Quickly : Experimental Evidence from a Mandatory Activation Program," Discussion Paper 2006-126, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    10. Røed, Knut & Westlie, Lars, 2007. "Unemployment Insurance in Welfare States: Soft Constraints and Mild Sanctions," Memorandum 13/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    11. Beatrix Brügger & Rafael Lalive & Josef Zweimüller, 2009. "Does Culture Affect Unemployment? Evidence from the Röstigraben," NRN working papers 2009-10, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    12. Guillaume Blache, 2011. "Active Labour Market Policies in Denmark : A Comparative Analysis of Post-Program Effects," Post-Print halshs-00654181, HAL.
    13. Per Engström & Pathric Hägglund & Per Johansson, 2017. "Early Interventions and Disability Insurance: Experience from a Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(600), pages 363-392, March.
    14. Ott Toomet, 2008. "Threat Effect Of The Labour Market Programs In Denmark: Evidence From A Quasi-Experiment," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 62, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    15. Caroline Hall, 2011. "Do Interactions between Unemployment Insurance and Sickness Insurance Affect Transitions to Employment?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 25(4), pages 447-467, December.
    16. Blache, Guillaume, 2008. "Active Labour Market Policies in Denmark: A Comparative Analysis of Post-Program Effects," MPRA Paper 23168, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Feb 2009.
    17. Petrongolo, Barbara, 2009. "The long-term effects of job search requirements: Evidence from the UK JSA reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1234-1253, December.
    18. Mich�le Belot & Vincent Vandenberghe, 2014. "Evaluating the 'threat' effects of grade repetition: exploiting the 2001 reform by the French-Speaking Community of Belgium," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 73-89, February.
    19. Furtado, Delia & Papps, Kerry L. & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Who Goes on Disability when Times are Tough? The Role of Work Norms among Immigrants," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    20. Staghøj, Jonas & Svarer, Michael & Rosholm, Michael, 2007. "A Statistical Programme Assignment Model," IZA Discussion Papers 3165, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monitoring; Moral hazard; Public social insurance; Survival analysis; Instrumental variables; C93; H51; H55; J22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:44:y:2013:i:3:p:1673-1695. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.