Abstract
Background: The question of whether employees’ sickness absence from the workplace depends on personality has been researched. Existing evidence mostly stems from cross-sectional studies, mainly showing that personality factors were not associated with the number of sick leave days, except for neuroticism, which was positively associated with sick leave days. Based on the above, it remains an under researched question whether intraindividual changes in personality factors are associated with changes in sick leave days. Thus, based on a nationally representative sample, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between personality factors and sick leave days longitudinally based on a nationally representative sample of individuals in Germany. Methods: The present study used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), a longitudinal survey of private households in Germany. Information from the years 2005, 2009, 2013 were used. The Big Five Inventory-GSOEP (BFI-S) was used to measure personality. Sick leave days in the preceding year were recorded. Poisson fixed effects regressions were used. Results: Adjusting for potential confounders, regressions showed that increases in neuroticism were associated with increased sick leave days. The longitudinal association between extraversion and sick leave days was marginally significant (p < 0.10). Other personality factors were not significantly associated with sick leave days. In addition, sick leave days increased with worsening self-rated health, presence of severe disability and increasing age. Conclusions: The findings of the current study highlight the association between neuroticism and sick leave days longitudinally. Further research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.
Highlights
In recent decades, interest in research on personality has been increasing, because, among others, research on the topic of personality repeatedly shows the importance of this aspect in various economic aspects [1,2,3,4,5]
Existing evidence mostly stems from cross-sectional studies, mainly showing that personality factors were not associated with the number of sick leave days, except for neuroticism, which was positively associated with sick leave days
The only exception is the longitudinal study of Kok and colleagues [11]. They investigated whether conscientiousness influences long-term absenteeism (11 and more working days). It remains an under researched question whether intraindividual changes in personality factors are associated with changes in sick leave days
Summary
Interest in research on personality has been increasing, because, among others, research on the topic of personality repeatedly shows the importance of this aspect in various economic aspects [1,2,3,4,5]. Personality differences between individuals can be divided into five basic personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness Judge and his colleagues [6] describe these five factors as follows: neuroticism signifies perception of, in particular, negative emotions and is associated with anxiety and emotional instability, extraversion signifies perceptions and behaviors in relationships between people, extraverted people are often characterized as sociable, enthusiastic and energetic, openness to experience signifies intelligence, open-mindedness and a tendency to be non-conforming, agreeableness is associated with the ability to build teams, to care about others, and conscientiousness refers to job performance, to what extent. Based on a nationally representative sample, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between personality factors and sick leave days longitudinally based on a nationally representative sample of individuals in Germany.
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