If Sick-Leave Becomes More Costly, Will I Go Back to Work? Could It Be Too Soon?

Olivier Marie and Judit Vall Castello

No 13379, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the impact on work absence of a massive reduction in paid sick leave benefits. We exploit a policy change that only affected public sector workers in Spain and compare changes in the number and length of spells they take relative to unaffected private sector workers. Our results highlight a large drop in frequency mostly offset by increases in average duration. Overall, the policy did reduce number of days lost to sick leave. For some, however, return to work may have been premature as we document huge increases in both the proportion of relapses and working accidents rates.

Keywords: benefit displacement; relapses contagious diseases; presenteeism; absenteeism; paid sick leave; sickness insurance; working accidents; negative externalities; Spain; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I13 I18 J22 J28 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published as 'Sick Leave Cuts and (Unhealthy) Returns to Work' in: Journal of Labor Economics, 2023, 41, 923-956.

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Related works:
Working Paper: If Sick-Leave becomes More Costly, Will I go back to Work? Could it be too soon? (2020)
Working Paper: If sick-leave becomes more costly, will I go back to work? Could it be too soon? (2020)
Working Paper: If Sick-Leave becomes More Costly, Will I go back to Work? Could it be too soon? (2020)
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