In this project, we investigate three possible mechanisms behind the gender gap in sickness absence in Norway; (1) The importance of having children, (2) Investments in health and (3) Statistical discrimination.
The first part of the project will give an overview of patterns in sickness absence over the lifecycle with an emphasis on the importance of having children in the family. We will also use instrumental variables methods to evaluate the causal impact of children on sickness absence.
The second part of the project investigates the apparent paradox that women have higher sickness absence rates, but live longer than men. A possible explanation may be that women to a larger degree and at an earlier stage visit a doctor or in other ways take better care of their health. Another explanation is that there are biological differences between men and women in type of illness and how fast they recover. We wish to investigate the importance of differences in behavior by comparing behavior after illnesses that biologically affects men and women in the same way.
The third part of the project investigates whether high female absence rates overall makes the threshold to be absent lower for the individual woman. One reason for this is that the employer may expect the woman to have higher sickness absence than a man, so that sickness absence will not serve as the same negative signal to the employer for women. The (career) cost of staying home when ill can therefore be lower for women.