Working Paper Series,
Trade Union Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: Procyclical absenteeism might be due to higher sick-rates of marginal workers, or a consequence of procyclical sick-report incentives. These hypotheses predict opposite signs for the correlation between sick-rates and shares of temporary contracts. This is the case, when the share of temporary contracts is a proxy for the share of marginal workers, and an indicator of stronger incentives for job presence of temporary employees who have generally weaker job security than those on permanent contracts. Using industry-region panel data, we find a stable negative correlation between sick-rates and shares of temporary contracts implying that procyclical sick-rate is compatible with the idea that sick-report incentives are procyclical.

Keywords: Absenteeism; Temporary Employment

JEL-codes: J22

16 pages, March 5, 2001

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