Effects of sickness absence on disability pension in two ethnolinguistic groups: register-based evidence from Finland

Abstract

The Swedish-speaking ethnolinguistic minority in Finland has a health advantage over the Finnish-speaking majority in terms of lower levels of sickness allowance and disability pension receipt. We examine whether this differential has consequences within the social security system by analysing the long-term risk for disability pension after sickness allowance receipt. With longitudinal population-register data covering the period 1989–2010, we observed 110,390 individuals aged 16–40 years at baseline. Using discrete-time hazard models, we estimated how first observed receipt of sickness allowance relates to disability pension receipt in the Finnish- and Swedish-speaking groups. Receipt of sickness allowance was found to be an important predictor for future disability pension receipt, but there were no systematic differences between the two ethnolinguistic groups in this respect, and the results were highly similar for men and women. These findings suggest that the social security system in Finland is non-discriminatory and provides equal treatment of both ethnolinguistic groups despite their overall health differential.