IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijhplm/v35y2020i5p1083-1097.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unavailability of paid sick leave among parents is a barrier for children's utilization of nonemergency health services: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Brayan V. Seixas
  • James Macinko

Abstract

Objective To assess the association between availability of paid sick leave among parents and children's use of several distinct types of nonurgent health services and emergency care. Methods Using pooled 2013 to 2017 data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), we created dyadic units of observation linking adults with their children (n = 21 235). Descriptive statistics, logistic regressions for binary outcomes, and regular and zero‐inflated negative binomial regressions for count outcomes assessed the relationship between parental coverage by paid sick leave benefits and 12 dependent variables related to health care utilization. Regression analyses controlled for a set of child, parent, and family covariates. Results Overall, 58.3% of individuals in our sample reported having paid sick leave in their current or latest job. There are substantial disparities in availability of paid sick leave in terms of parent sex, race, education, and income. Controlling for covariates, the odds of children with at least one parent with access to paid sick leave having any visit to a medical office in the past 12 months are 27% higher than for children whose parents do not have this benefit. Similar positive associations were observed for general doctor visit (OR = 1.18, 95%CI: 1.05‐1.32), mental health professional visit (OR = 1.19, 95%CI: 1.01‐1.42), and receipt of flu vaccination (OR = 1.21, 95%CI: 1.11‐1.33). There was no statistically significant association with emergency room use, once covariates were controlled. Conclusions Availability of paid sick leave among parents is associated with increased children's utilization of nonemergency health services and primary care.

Suggested Citation

  • Brayan V. Seixas & James Macinko, 2020. "Unavailability of paid sick leave among parents is a barrier for children's utilization of nonemergency health services: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1083-1097, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijhplm:v:35:y:2020:i:5:p:1083-1097
    DOI: 10.1002/hpm.2988
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.2988
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hpm.2988?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jody Heymann & Hye Jin Rho & John Schmitt & Alison Earle, 2009. "Contagion Nation: A Comparison of Paid Sick Day Policies in 22 Countries," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2009-19, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laszlo Goerke, 2017. "Sick pay reforms and health status in a unionised labour market," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(2), pages 115-142, May.
    2. Andrea M. Mühlenweg & Franz G. Westermaier & Brant Morefield, 2016. "Parental health and child behavior: evidence from parental health shocks," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 577-598, September.
    3. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: A Method to Test for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112940, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Nicolas R. Ziebarth & Martin Karlsson, 2014. "The Effects Of Expanding The Generosity Of The Statutory Sickness Insurance System," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 208-230, March.
    5. Schroyen, Fred & Aarbu, Karl Ove, 2017. "Attitudes towards large income risk in welfare states: an international comparison," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 20/2017, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    6. Carlo Alberto Biscardo & Alessandro Bucciol & Paolo Pertile, 2019. "Job sick leave: Detecting opportunistic behavior," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 373-386, March.
    7. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Duersch, Peter & Oechssler, Jörg & Vadovic, Radovan, 2010. "Mandatory sick pay provision: A labor market experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 870-877, December.
    8. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1509, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Reprint of: The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 86-104.
    10. Mommaerts, Corina & Raza, Syed Hassan & Zheng, Yu, 2020. "The economic consequences of hospitalizations for older workers across countries," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    11. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of U.S. Sick Pay Mandates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(2), pages 611-659.
    12. Okechukwu, Cassandra A. & Kelly, Erin L. & Bacic, Janine & DePasquale, Nicole & Hurtado, David & Kossek, Ellen & Sembajwe, Grace, 2016. "Supporting employees' work-family needs improves health care quality: Longitudinal evidence from long-term care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 111-119.
    13. Pierre Koning, 2016. "Privatizing sick pay: Does it work?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 324-324, December.
    14. Kaitlin Piper & Ada Youk & A Everette James III & Supriya Kumar, 2017. "Paid sick days and stay-at-home behavior for influenza," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-13, February.
    15. Veliziotis, Michail, 2010. "Unionization and sickness absence from work in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2010-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Daniel Kim, 2017. "Paid Sick Leave and Risks of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality among Adult Workers in the USA," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-10, October.
    17. Ahn, Thomas & Yelowitz, Aaron, 2016. "Paid Sick Leave and Absenteeism: The First Evidence from the U.S," MPRA Paper 69794, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-33.
    19. Joanna Gaitens & Marian Condon & Eseosa Fernandes & Melissa McDiarmid, 2021. "COVID-19 and Essential Workers: A Narrative Review of Health Outcomes and Moral Injury," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-18, February.
    20. Martin Halla & Susanne Pech & Martina Zweimüller, 2017. "The effect of statutory sick-pay on workers' labor supply and subsequent health," Working Papers 2017-04, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijhplm:v:35:y:2020:i:5:p:1083-1097. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0749-6753 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.