Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Trade Union Institute for Economic Research

No 203: Happy Birthday! You are Insured - Differences in Work Ethics Between Female and Male Workers

Peter Skogman Thoursie ()
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Peter Skogman Thoursie: FIEF, Postal: and Department of Economics, Stockholm University, SE-109 26 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: In this paper information on individual birth dates is used as a natural experiment when estimating potential cheating behavior within the Swedish sickness insurance program. In the psychological literature there are theories why men and women react differently to ethical situations. Results in this paper are in line with these theories. The results indicate that only younger male workers cheated which supports the idea that men have lower work ethics. But additional findings also suggest that younger male workers do have some shame since they reported sick to a significant less extent the week before they had their birthday. In fact the net change in reporting sick is zero.

Keywords: Reporting sick; Cheating; Work ethics; Natural experiment

JEL-codes: J22; J29

7 pages, March 14, 2005

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