The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers

Christopher Cronin, Matthew Harris and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 29956, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study how public school teachers use paid sick leave. Most U.S. sick leave schemes operate as individualized credit accounts – paid leave is earned and unused leave accumulates, producing an employee-specific leave balance. We construct a unique data set from administrative records containing the daily balances and leave behavior of 982 teachers from 2010- 2018. We find that sick leave use increases during flu season. We do not find evidence that the average teacher uses sick leave for leisure; however, there is evidence of such behavior among certain subsets of teachers (e.g., young, inexperienced teachers). Usage increases with leave balance; the elasticity is around 0.4. Further, higher balances reduce the likelihood that teachers work sick, particularly during flu season.

JEL-codes: I12 I13 I18 J22 J28 J32 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ure
Note: AG ED EH LS PE
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