In most Western countries illness-related absenteeism is higher among female workers than among male workers. Using the personnel dataset of a large Italian bank, we show that the probability of an absence due to illness increases for females, relative to males, approximately 28 days after a...

We use monthly personnel records of a large German company for the years 1999-2005 to analyse the gender wage gap (GWG). The unconditional GWG is 15 per cent for blue-collar and 26 per cent for white-collar workers. Different returns to entry age explain a substantial part of the GWG as well as...

We test if social work norms are important for work absence due to self-perceived sick-ness. To this end, we use a randomized social experiment designed to estimate the effect of monitoring on work absence. The treated were exposed to less monitoring of their eligibility to use sickness...