Sickness Absence and Peer Effects -Evidence from a Swedish Municipality

In this paper we use detailed employment records to study to what extent sickness absence among work group colleagues influences individual sickness absence. Our results indicate an overall positive peer effect. However, further analysis show peer behavior to be important for women’s sickness absence, but not for men’s, and that woman are only affected by their female co-workers. Our findings also suggest that it, on average, takes two to three years for a new employee to become influenced by the absence pattern of the work group. In light of our results, we cannot rule out the possibility of social norms being important to the individual sick leave decision.