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Child‐To‐Teacher Ratio And Day Care Teacher Sickness Absenteeism

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  • Mette Gørtz
  • Elvira Andersson

Abstract

The literature on occupational health points to work pressure as a trigger of sickness absence. However, reliable, objective measures of work pressure are in short supply. This paper uses Danish day care teachers as an ideal case for analysing whether work pressure measured by the child‐to‐teacher ratio, that is, the number of children per teacher in an institution, affects teacher sickness absenteeism. We control for individual teacher characteristics, workplace characteristics, and family background characteristics of the children in the day care institutions. We perform estimations for two time periods, 2002–2003 and 2005–2006, by using generalized method of moments with lagged levels of the child‐to‐teacher ratio as instrument. Our estimation results are somewhat mixed. Generally, the results indicate that the child‐to‐teacher ratio is positively related to short‐term sickness absence for nursery care teachers, but not for preschool teachers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Mette Gørtz & Elvira Andersson, 2014. "Child‐To‐Teacher Ratio And Day Care Teacher Sickness Absenteeism," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(12), pages 1430-1442, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:23:y:2014:i:12:p:1430-1442
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.2994
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    Cited by:

    1. Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Gørtz, Mette & Kennes, John & Lyng, Ran Sun & Monte, Daniel & Tumennasan, Norovsambuu, 2021. "Discrimination and Daycare Choice: Evidence from a Randomized Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 14874, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nina Drange & Trude Gunnes & Kjetil Telle, 2021. "Workload, staff composition, and sickness absence: findings from employees in child care centers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3375-3400, December.
    3. Gørtz, Mette & Johansen, Eva Rye & Simonsen, Marianne, 2018. "Academic achievement and the gender composition of preschool staff," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 241-258.
    4. Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Mette Gørtz & John Kennes & Ran Sun Lyng & Daniel Monte & Norovsambuu Tumennasan, 2019. "Daycare Choice and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from a Randomized Survey," Economics Working Papers 2019-02, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.

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