We examine the remarkable rise in absenteeism among Norwegian employees since the early 1990's, with particular emphasis on disentangling the roles of cohort, age, and time. Based on a fixed effects model, we show that individual age-adjusted absence propensities have risen even more than...

This paper examines the effect of the replacement rule of the Finnish sickness insurance system on the duration of sickness absence. A pre-determined, piecewise linear policy rule in which the replacement rate is determined by past earnings allows identification of the effect using a regression...

Sickness absence tends to be negatively correlated with unemployment. This may suggest disciplining effects of unemployment but may also reflect changes in the composition of the labour force. A panel of Norwegian register data for the years 1990-1995 is used to analyse sickness absences lasting...