Sick Leave Before, During and After Pregnancy

Karsten Marshall E. Rieck () and Kjetil Telle
Additional contact information
Karsten Marshall E. Rieck: University of Bergen, Norway, Postal: Department of Economics, Fosswinckelsgt. 14 , 5007 Bergen, Norway, http://www.uib.no/econ

No 06/12, Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using registry data on every employed Norwegian woman giving birth to her first child during the period 1995–2008, we describe patterns of certified and paid sick leave before, during and after pregnancy. By following the same women over time, we can explore how observed sick leave patterns are – or are not – related to the women’s exiting (or reentering) employment. The results show that sick leave increases abruptly in the month of conception, and continues to grow throughout the term of pregnancy. Sick leave during pregnancy has been rising substantially compared with pre-pregnancy levels over the period 1995–2008, but this increase seems unrelated to women’s growing age at first birth. In line with hypotheses of women’s “double burden”, observed sick leave rates increase in the years after birth. However, when we handle some obvious selection issues – like sick leave during a succeeding pregnancy – the increase in women’s sick leave in the years after birth dissolves. Overall, we find little, if any, sign of the relevance of “double burden” hypotheses in explaining the excessive sick leave of women compared with men.

Keywords: Sick leave; pregnancy; female employment; double burden. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 H55 I18 J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2012-05-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea, nep-lab and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ekstern.filer.uib.no/svf/2012/w.p.%2006.12.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Sick leave before, during and after pregnancy (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics Institutt for økonomi, Universitetet i Bergen, Postboks 7802, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kjell Erik Lommerud ().