The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes. Evidence from Public School Teachers.

Autor/inn/en	Cronin, Christopher J.; Harris, Matthew C.; Ziebarth, Nicolas R.
Institution	National Bureau of Economic Research
Titel	The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes. Evidence from Public School Teachers.
Quelle	Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research (2022), 41 S. PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	NBER working paper series. w29956
Beigaben	Illustrationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
DOI	10.3386/w29956
Schlagwörter	Lehrer; Krankheit; Sozialleistung; Lohnfortzahlung; Erwerbsunfähigkeit; Arbeitspapier; Wirkungsanalyse; Öffentliche Hand; USA
Abstract	This paper studies how U.S. employees use paid sick leave. The most common U.S. sick-leave schemes operate as individualized credit accounts---paid leave is earned over time and unused leave accumulates, producing an employee-specific "leave balance." We construct a unique administrative dataset containing the daily balance information and leave behavior of 982 public school teachers from 2010 to 2018. We have three main findings: First, we provide evidence of judicious sick-leave use---namely, teachers use more sick leave during higher flu activity---but no evidence of inappropriate use for the purposes of leisure. Second, we find that leave use is increasing in the leave balance with an average balance-use elasticity of 0.45. This relationship is strongest at the very bottom of the balance distribution. Third, we find that a higher leave balance reduces the likelihood that a teacher works sick ("presenteeism"), especially during flu season. Taken together, these results suggest that a simple alteration to the current sick-leave scheme could reduce the likelihood of presenteeism, thereby lowering infection risk in schools, with few adverse consequences.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2023/1