October 31, 2005
Sickness absence over the business cycle
Gunstige conjunctuur leidt tot meer ziekteverzuim
Press release
Bij een gunstige economische ontwikkeling melden meer werknemers zich ziek. Een daling van de werkloosheid met 1%-punt leidt naar schatting tot een stijging van het ziekteverzuim met 0,25%-punt.
We are sorry, unfortunately there is no English translation of this page.
Like previous research, we find a procyclical relation. Measured by unemployment, the CPB employment barometer or the degree of vacancies, economic upswings go together with more sickness absence. We estimate the effects with both an error correction model for times series (1980-2003) as well as a fixed-effects model on quarterly industry data for the period 1995-2003.
We also show that some policy measures have lowered sickness absence and that changes in the composition of the workforce have tended to raise it. On balance, the structural level of sickness absence has decreased during the last ten to twenty years.
This publication is in Dutch.
Authors
Hans Stegeman