Workplace health promotion and labour market performance of employees
Huber, Martin ; Lechner, Michael ; Wunsch, Conny
Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn
IZA - Bonn
2014
38 p.
absenteeism ; enterprise level ; occupational health ; sick leave
Discussion Paper
8297
Occupational safety and health
English
Bibliogr.
"This paper investigates the average effects of (firm-provided) workplace health promotion measures in form of the analysis of sickness absenteeism and health circles/courses on labour market out-comes of the firms' employees. Exploiting linked employer-employee panel data that consist of rich survey-based and administrative information on firms, workers and regions, we apply a flexible propensity score matching approach that controls for selection on observables as well as on time-constant unobserved factors. While the effects of analysing sickness absenteeism appear to be rather limited, our results suggest that health circles/courses increase tenure and decrease the number of job changes across various age groups. A key finding is that health circles/courses strengthen the labour force attachment of elderly employees (51-60), implying potential cost savings for public transfer schemes such as unemployment or early retirement benefits."
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