Original title: Sick pay and absence from work: evidence from flu exposure
Authors: Grossmann, Jakub
Document type: Research reports
Year: 2021
Language: eng
Series: CERGE-EI Working Paper Series, volume: 690
Abstract: The system of sick-pay is critical for balancing the economic and health costs of infectious diseases. Surprisingly, most research on sick-pay reforms does not rely on variation in worker exposure to diseases when investigating absences from work. This paper studies the effects on absences from work of changes in health-insurance coverage of the first three days of sickness. We explore geographic variation in the prevalence of infectious diseases, primarily the seasonal flu, to provide variation in the need for sickness insurance. Estimates based on the Czech Structure of Earnings Survey imply that when sickness insurance is not available, total hours of work missed are not affected, but employees rely on paid and unpaid leave instead of sick-leave to stay home. The substitution effects are heterogenous across occupations and socio-demographic characteristics of employees, and suggest that workers do not spread infectious diseases at the workplace as a result of the absence of sickness insurance coverage in the first three days of sickness.
Keywords: exposure to sickness; policy reform; sickness insurance

Institution: Economics Institute AS ČR (web)
Document availability information: Fulltext is available at external website.
External URL: https://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp690.pdf
Original record: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0319932

Permalink: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-438880


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