Labor Market Institutions and Individual Absenteeism in the European Union: The Relative Importance of Sickness Benefit Systems and Employment Protection Legislation |
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| Authors: | BERND FRICK MIGUEL Á. MALO |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Management, University of Paderborn, Warburger Strasse 100, D‐33098 Paderborn, Germany;2. Department of Economics and Economic History, Universidad de Salamanca, Edificio FES–Campus “Miguel de Unamuno,” E‐37007 Salamanca, Spain;3. The authors’ affiliations are, Department of Management, University of Paderborn, Warburger Strasse 100, D‐33098 Paderborn, Germany;4. Department of Economics and Economic History, Universidad de Salamanca, Edificio FES–Campus “Miguel de Unamuno,” E‐37007 Salamanca, Spain. E‐mails: and . We would like to thank the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions for making the data of the 3rd “European Working Conditions Survey” available to us. The views expressed in the paper are ours and not necessarily those of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. We have benefited from comments by David Allen, Uschi Backes‐Gellner, Regina Riphahn, Wendelin Schnedler, Robert Simmons, and participants of a workshop at the Institute of Labor Law and Industrial Relations at the University of Trier (October 2004) and the discussants at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Western Economic Association in San Francisco (July 2005). Gunnar Pietzner provided excellent research assistance. Any remaining errors and omissions are, of course, our own. |
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| Abstract: | In this article, we analyze the determinants of individual absenteeism focusing on the “strictness” of employment protection and the “generosity” of sickness benefits. The data come from the “European Survey on Working Conditions” launched in 2000. Due to its coverage (the EU‐14), the data enable us to identify the relative importance of the institutional framework for explaining differences in absence behavior across nations. Our results reveal that, first, employment protection does not influence the number of absence days while sickness benefits increase absenteeism. And, second, the impact of the institutional framework is smaller than that of some individual worker characteristics. |
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