Does Sick Pay Affect Workplace Absence?

Alex Bryson and Harald Dale-Olsen ()
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Harald Dale-Olsen: Institute for Social Research, Oslo

No 11222, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, private sick pay is provided in addition to the public sick pay. Why? Using comparative workplace data for the UK and Norway we show that the higher level of absenteeism in Norway compared to UK is related to the threshold in the Norwegian public sick pay legislation. This threshold's importance is confirmed in a Regression Kinked Design (RKD) analysis on the Norwegian micro-data. Private sick pay is provided as an employer-provided non-wage benefit and when training costs are high.

Keywords: absenteeism; public sick pay; private sick pay; comparative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 J22 J28 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Research in Labor Economics, 2019, (47), 227-252

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Working Paper: Does Sick Pay Affect Workplace Absence? (2017)
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