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Paid Sick Leave and Employee Absenteeism

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This paper studies the response of sickness absences to changes in the replacement rate for sick leave. In June 2008 a national law modified both the strength of monitoring and the monetary cost of sick leaves for public sector employees in Italy. This paper focuses on the National Health Service, which accounts for about 21% of the total number of workers employed in the Italian public administration. Using administrative data I show that absenteeism largely decreased following the reform. I identify the effects of an increase in the monetary cost of an absence using a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation in changes to the replacement rate for sick leave. Under the assumption that changes in monitoring had the same proportional impact on absenteeism within the same institutions, I estimate that a 1 percentage point decrease in the replacement rate reduces absenteeism by 1%. JEL Classification: J88, J08.

Suggested Citation

  • Annalisa Scognamiglio, 2019. "Paid Sick Leave and Employee Absenteeism," CSEF Working Papers 530, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:530
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    6. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa & Valeria Pupo, 2014. "Absenteeism in the Italian Public Sector: The Effects of Changes in Sick Leave Policy," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 337-360.
    7. Ziebarth, Nicolas R. & Karlsson, Martin, 2010. "A natural experiment on sick pay cuts, sickness absence, and labor costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1108-1122, December.
    8. Arai, Mahmood & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2005. "Incentives and selection in cyclical absenteeism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 269-280, April.
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    10. Lusine Lusinyan & Leo Bonato, 2007. "Work Absence in Europe," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 475-538, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Boeri, Tito & di Porto, Edoardo & Naticchioni, Paolo & Scrutinio, Vincenzo, 2021. "Friday Morning Fever. Evidence from a Randomized Experiment on Sick Leave Monitoring in the Public Sector," IZA Discussion Papers 14346, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Martin Andersen & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Michael F. Pesko & Kosali I. Simon, 2020. "Paid sick-leave and physical mobility: Evidence from the United States during a pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public sector absenteeism; paid sick leave; incentives.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J88 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Public Policy
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

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