Commuting and Sickness Absence

Laszlo Goerke and Olga Lorenz ()
Additional contact information
Olga Lorenz: IAAEU, University of Trier

No 11183, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the causal effect of commuting on sickness absence from work using German panel data. To address reverse causation, we use changes in commuting distance for employees who stay with the same employer and who have the same residence during the period of observation. In contrast to previous papers, we do not observe that commuting distances are associated with higher sickness absence, in general. Only employees who commute long distances are absent about 20% more than employees with no commutes. We explore various explanations for the effect of long distance commutes to work and can find no evidence that it is due to working hours mismatch, lower work effort, reduced leisure time or differences in health status.

Keywords: sickness absence; absenteeism; commuting; health; labour supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J22 R2 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lma, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Commuting and Sickness Absence (2017)
Working Paper: Commuting and Sickness Absence (2017)
Working Paper: Commuting and Sickness Absence (2015)
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