Coming to work while sick: an economic theory of presenteeism with an application to German data

Abstract

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The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior

“…However, none of these papers estimates labor supply effects by disease groups or estimates effects on contagious disease rates. In particular, this paper extends the small economic literature on presenteeism at the workplace (Aronsson et al 2000;Chatterji and Tilley 2002;Brown and Sessions 2004;Pauly et al 2008;Barmby and Larguem 2009;Johns 2010;Böckerman and Laukkanen 2010;Markussen et al 2012;Pichler 2015;Hirsch et al 2015;Ahn and Yelowitz 2016). With one exception, none of the empirical studies on presenteeism just cited identifies or intends to identify causal effects of sick leave schemes on presenteeism.…”

Mental health and productivity at work: Does what you do matter?

“…Similarly, Brown and Sessions (2004) show that firms can strike a balance between presenteeism (attending work while sick) and shirking (staying home while well) by setting appropriate standards for what constitute an authorized absence. Finally, Hirsch et al (2015) argue that heterogeneity in workers' underlying health status can result in presenteeism and absenteeism co-existing.…”

Presenteeism in Economic Research*

“…Thus, the key empirical implications of the theoretical models by Chatterji and Tilley (2002) and Brown and Sessions (2004) are not consistent with the empirical observations that have been convincingly documented in the literature. Hirsch et al (2017) present the first complete economic model of work attendance that incorporates both work-related sickness categories (i.e., absenteeism and presenteeism). In the model, presenteeism is interpreted as the outcome of the optimizing behaviour of both employers and employees.…”

“…In the model by Hirsch et al (2017), workers choose their workplace presence depending on their disutility associated with workplace attendance; this is unobservable to their employer. The disutility depends on workers' health status.…”

“…The theoretical model presented by Hirsch et al (2017) has three important implications that can be tested with suitable empirical data. First, the model implies that workers differ notably in terms of their presenteeism behaviour.…”