The anatomy of U.S. sick leave schemes: Evidence from public school teachers

Christopher J. Cronin, Matthew C. Harris and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 25-055, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: We study how public school teachers use paid sick leave. Most US sick leave schemes operate as individualized credit accounts: Paid leave is earned, and unused leave accumulates. We construct a unique dataset of daily leave balances and behavior among 982 teachers for 2010-2018. Sick leave use increases during flu season, and evidence indicates that the average teacher does not use sick leave for leisure though some subsets of teachers (e.g., the young and inexperienced) do. Usage increases with leave balance; the elasticity is around 0.4. Further, teachers with higher balances are less likely to work sick, particularly during flu season.

Keywords: sick leave; teacher; presenteeism; moral hazard; labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I13 I18 I28 J22 J28 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ure
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/330324/1/193958177X.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:330324

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