IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/530.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Paid Sick Leave and Employee Absenteeism

Author

Listed:

Abstract

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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp530.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barmby, T A & Orme, C D & Treble, John G, 1991. "Worker Absenteeism: An Analysis Using Microdata," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 214-229, March.
    2. Tim A. Barmby & Marco G. Ercolani & John G. Treble, 2002. "Sickness Absence: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(480), pages 315-331, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Arai, Mahmood & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2005. "Incentives and selection in cyclical absenteeism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 269-280, April.
    5. Harald Dale-Olsen, 2014. "Sickness Absence, Sick Leave Pay, and Pay Schemes," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(1), pages 40-63, March.
    6. Ose, Solveig Osborg, 2005. "Working conditions, compensation and absenteeism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 161-188, January.
    7. Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G, 1996. "The Economics of Absence: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 23-53, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Lusine Lusinyan & Leo Bonato, 2007. "Work Absence in Europe," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 475-538, July.
    10. Johansson, Per & Palme, Marten, 1996. "Do economic incentives affect work absence? Empirical evidence using Swedish micro data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 195-218, February.
    11. Olsson, Martin, 2009. "Employment protection and sickness absence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 208-214, April.
    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. 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.

    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. Annalisa Scognamiglio, 2020. "Paid Sick Leave and Employee Absences," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 34(3), pages 305-322, September.
    2. Konstantinos, Pouliakas & Ioannis, Theodossiou, 2010. "An Inquiry Into the Theory, Causes and Consequences of Monitoring Indicators of Health and Safety At Work," MPRA Paper 20336, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2009. "Performance Pay as an Incentive for Lower Absence Rates in Britain," MPRA Paper 18238, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Cristini, Annalisa & Origo, Federica & Pinoli, Sara, 2017. "The healthy fright of losing a good one for a bad one," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 129-144.
    5. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1509, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-33.
    7. Per Engström & Bertil Holmlund, 2007. "Worker Absenteeism in Search Equilibrium," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 439-467, September.
    8. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: A Method to Test for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112940, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Sebastien Menard, 2021. "Optimal sickness benefits in a principal–agent model," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(1), pages 5-33, July.
    10. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Reprint of: The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 86-104.
    11. Konstantinos Pouliakas & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2012. "The Effect of Variable Pay Schemes on Workplace Absenteeism," Research in Labor Economics, in: Research in Labor Economics, pages 109-157, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Stephanie Prümer & Claus Schnabel, 2019. "Questioning the Stereotype of the “Malingering Bureaucrat”: Absence from Work in the Public and Private Sector in Germany," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 570-603, November.
    13. Vincenzo Scoppa & Daniela Vuri, 2014. "Absenteeism, unemployment and employment protection legislation: evidence from Italy," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    14. Goerke, Laszlo & Pannenberg, Markus, 2015. "Trade union membership and sickness absence: Evidence from a sick pay reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 13-25.
    15. Böckerman, Petri & Ilmakunnas, Pekka, 2006. "Interaction of job disamenities, job satisfaction, and sickness absences: Evidence from a representative sample of Finnish workers," MPRA Paper 1800, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2013. "Long-term absenteeism and moral hazard—Evidence from a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 277-292.
    17. Lusine Lusinyan & Leo Bonato, 2007. "Work Absence in Europe," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 475-538, July.
    18. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of U.S. Sick Pay Mandates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(2), pages 611-659.
    19. Peter Skogman Thoursie, 2004. "Reporting sick: are sporting events contagious?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 809-823.
    20. W.H.J. Hassink & P. Koning, 2005. "Do Financial Bonuses to Employees Reduce their Absenteeism? Outcome of a Lottery," Working Papers 05-27, Utrecht School of Economics.

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sef:csefwp:530. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.html .

    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.