A methodological proposal to evaluate the cost of duration moral hazard in workplace accident insurance

Are women breaking the glass ceiling? A gendered analysis of the duration of sick leave in Spain

We study the gender gap in the duration of sick leave in Spain by splitting this duration into two types of days - those which are related to biological characteristics and those derived from behavioral reasons. Using the Statistics of Accidents at Work for 2011-2019, we found that women presented longer standard durations (i.e., purely attached to physiological reasons) compared to men. However, when estimating individuals' efficiency as the ratio between actual and standard durations, we found that women were more inefficient at lower levels of income, whereas in case of men, this occurred at higher levels of income. These results were reinforced when considering that men and women do not recover from the same injury at the same rate. Women were more efficient than men across all the compensation distribution, especially at higher income levels.

Risk self-perception and occupational accidents

INTRODUCTION

This study analyzes the relationship between measures of occupational accidents and workers' perception of risk in the workplace using nationally representative data on workers' characteristics and a complete record of occupational accidents.

METHODS

Regression analyzes addressing both the ordinal nature of the dependent variable and causality were conducted to control for different sociodemographic factors influencing workers' perceptions of occupational risks. Special attention was paid to the risk level of the worker's workgroup, existence of family responsibilities, organizational safety culture, and measures of accident rates.

RESULTS

Individuals showed different perceptions of risk based on their personal and work characteristics. Significant associations were observed between each variable of interest and risk perception. Overall, the results remain robust across specifications addressing both simultaneity and ordinality.

CONCLUSIONS

Employees' "reading" of hazards was not fully aligned with objective information on occupational accidents but depended on individual characteristics. Having family responsibilities or being unionized increased workers' risk perception, whereas belonging to a workgroup with higher accident rates reduced it.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Knowing how workers perceive risk and how this perception deviates from statistical information on accidents are essential for management to accurately design safety measures. In this regard, specific characteristics such as age, having dependents in the family, or the typology of the workers' workgroup should be taken into account. Greater knowledge of preventive measures will improve the way workers perceive risk, and ultimately contribute to reducing the likelihood of occupational accidents.

The earnings and employment losses before entering the disability system

Although a number of papers in the literature have shown the employment and wage differences between individuals receiving disability benefits and non-disabled individuals, not much is known about the potential employment and wage losses that disabled individuals suffer before being officially accepted into the disability insurance system (DI). Therefore, in this paper we compare individuals that enter into the DI system due to a progressive deterioration in the health status (ordinary illness) to similar non-disabled individuals. Our aim is to identify the differences in employment and wages between these two groups before disabled individuals are officially accepted into the DI system. We combine matching models and difference-in-difference and we find that the wage (employment) growth patterns of both groups of workers become significantly different three (five) years before entering the DI system. More specifically, our estimates suggest that 1 year before entering the system, there is a difference of 79 Euros/month in the wages of the two groups (8.3% of average wage) as well as a 7.8% point difference in employment probabilities.

Unobserved heterogeneity in work absence

Labour absenteeism may be detrimental to firms and society because of the economic costs, organizational problems and production cuts that it involves. Although involuntary absenteeism due to accident or illness that prevents workers from performing their work is unavoidable, avoidable voluntary absenteeism may also emerge due to asymmetric information given that neither employers nor doctors have perfect information about workers' health status. Assuming that there is heterogeneity in individual's behaviour and thus some workers are more likely to take sick leave than others due to differences in observable and unobservable characteristics, we specify a Finite Mixture Model to analyse sick leave days per year using a sample of employees from the 2014 European Health Survey in Spain. This specification accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in a discrete way assuming that there are two types of workers even though the data do not allow us to identify which group any individual belongs to. Our results reveal that, although health indicators have the greatest impact on the proportional change in days of absenteeism, there is heterogeneity in sick leave decisions and individual and job characteristics have different effect on the absenteeism of each group.