Trade union membership and sickness absence: Evidence from a sick pay reform

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. In 1996, statutory sick pay was reduced for private sector workers in Germany. Using the empirical observation that trade union members are dismissed less often than non-members, we construct a model to predict how absence behaviour will respond to the sick pay reform. Terms of use: Documents inWe show that union members may have stronger incentives to be absent and to react to the cut in sick pay. In the empirical investigation, we find a positive relationship between trade union membership and absence due to sickness and observe more pronounced reactions to the cut in sick pay among union members than among non-members. These findings suggest that more flexibility in the use of paid absence due to sickness constitutes a private gain from trade union membership.JEL-Code: I180, J510, J220.Keywords: difference-in-differences, sickness-related absence, Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), statutory sick pay, trade union membership. We are grateful to Nicolas Ziebarth for helpful comments and for providing background information on industry-specific bargaining contracts. Also, special thanks to Laszlo Goerke

Works councils and absenteeism of apprentices: An empirical analysis

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Commuting and Sickness Absence

“…Since absence is negatively related to health (Puhani andSonderhoff, 2010 andPannenberg, 2015; for example, present according evidence for Germany), the impact of commuting on absence may be due to health effects. To accommodate this possibility, the estimations presented thus far include a subjective measure of health.…”

Are women breaking the glass ceiling? A gendered analysis of the duration of sick leave in Spain

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