“Never on a Sunday”: Economic Incentives and Sick Leave in Sweden

Using a longitudinal data for about 1800 persons observed between 1986 and 1991, this study investigates the incentive effects on short-term sickness spells of two important regime changes in the social insurance system in Sweden implemented in 1987 and 1991. The results indicate that the rules influenced people’s decisions about when to report the beginning and ending of sickness spells. The 1991 reform, which reduced the replacement rate, had a stronger effect on reducing the duration of short-term absences than the 1987 reform, which restricted the payment of sickness cash benefit to only scheduled workdays. Key words: short-term absenteeism due to sickness, sickness insurance, reform