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Worried sick? Worker responses to a financial shock

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  • Bratberg, Espen
  • Monstad, Karin

Abstract

Excessive sickness absence may hurt productivity and put a strain on public finances. One explanation put forward for increasing absence rates is that a tougher labour market represents a health hazard. A competing hypothesis is that loss of job security works as a disciplinary device. We use a financial shock that hit the public sector in Norway in 2007 in some, but not all, municipalities to identify the effect of reduced job security on sickness absence. Public sector workers in municipalities that were not affected are used as a control group in a difference-in-differences analysis. In addition, trends in sickness absence of public and private sector employees are compared, in a triple difference-in-differences analysis. We find that sickness absence among public employees decreased considerably in the year after the shock in the affected municipalities. The results survive a number of robustness checks. The evidence is strongest for women, and consistent with a hypothesis that reduced job security has a disciplining effect.

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  • Bratberg, Espen & Monstad, Karin, 2015. "Worried sick? Worker responses to a financial shock," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 111-120.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:33:y:2015:i:c:p:111-120
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2015.02.003
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    3. Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Suziedelyte, Agne, 2017. "World Commodity Prices, Job Security and Health: Evidence from the Mining Industry," IZA Discussion Papers 11251, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Jarno Turunen & Kati Karhula & Annina Ropponen & Aki Koskinen & Rahman Shiri & Mikael Sallinen & Jenni Ervasti & Jaakko Pehkonen & Mikko Härmä, 2022. "The Time-Varying Effect of Participatory Shift Scheduling on Working Hour Characteristics and Sickness Absence: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Hospitals," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-20, November.
    5. Olivier Marie & Judit Vall Castello, 2020. "If sick-leave becomes more costly, will I go back to work? Could it be too soon?," Working Papers 2020/09, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
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    7. Bratberg, Espen & Holmås, Tor Helge & Monstad, Karin, 2017. "The causal effect of workload on the labour supply of older employees," Working Papers in Economics 16/17, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    8. Arnaud Joskin, 2018. "Working Paper 02-18 - Mesurer le bien-être en Belgique - Construction d’un indicateur composite pour mesurer le bien-être actuel des Belges [Working Paper 02-18 - Het welzijn in België meten - Opbo," Working Papers 1802, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    9. Mundbjerg Eriksen, Tine L. & Hogh, Annie & Hansen, Åse Marie, 2016. "Long-term consequences of workplace bullying on sickness absence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 129-150.
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