Sickness Benefits Research Articles

Incydentalne wykonywanie czynności zarobkowych w trakcie pobierania zasiłku chorobowego

The aim of the paper is to analyse controversial situations in the Polish judicial practice relating to performing incidental paid activities in times of sick leave, both by the insured – employees and persons not being employees, especially entrepreneurs. According to the Author’s opinion only social activities or incidental and mainly formal occupational activities can be qualified as the exceptions from the rule of the loss of the right to sickness benefit. Such view is justified by the public character and formality of the system of social security. Situations resulting in a possible loss of sickness benefit should be assessed each time in the context of the principle of proportionality.

Friday Morning Fever. Evidence from a Randomized Experiment on Sick Leave Monitoring in the Public Sector

This paper provides the first analysis of a population-wide controlled field experiment for home visits checking on sick leave in the public sector. The experiment was carried out in Italy, a country with large absenteeism in the public sector, and it concerned the universe of public employees. We exploit unique administrative data from the Italian social security administration (INPS) on sick leave and work histories. We find that receiving a home visit reduces the number of days on sick leave in the following 16 months by about 12% (5.5 days). The effect is stronger for workers who are found irregularly on sick leave (-10.2 days). We interpret our findings as a deterrence effect of home visits: workers being found irregularly on sick leave experience a decline of about 2% of their wage in the following 12 months. Uncertainty aversion (there is no automatism in these sanctions) can play a role in these results. Our estimates suggest that home visits are cost-effective: every Euro spent for the visits involves up to 10 Euros reductions in sick benefits outlays. We estimate the marginal value of public funds (MVPF) spent on home visits at about 1.13, which is significantly lower than estimates of MVPF of income taxes in the US.

The Internal, Systemic and Constitutional Integrity of EU Regulation 883/2004 on the Coordination of Social Security Systems: Lessons from a Scandal

The Norwegian ‘social security’ scandal concerns the right to export sickness benefits pursuant to EU Regulation 883/2004. Norway is party to the EEA Agreement and the Regulation is binding in Norway. Norway’s Social Security Act requires continued presence in Norway to retain payable benefits. Thousands of claims have been rejected by disregarding Regulation 883/2004 or reading it down. Some hundred citizens have been sentenced to prison for welfare fraud because they stayed in another EU/EEA State and exported cash benefits in the absence of prior authorization. Legal uncertainty seems to remain, and the exact scope of the scandal is still not clear. The paper discusses the reach and depth of the rights afforded by Regulation 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems. It argues that the main rules on equal treatment (Articles 4 and 5) and the main rule on free movement (Article 7) provide an unconditional right to export sickness benefits in cash. It provides an account of the internal, systemic, and constitutional integrity of the Regulation, and the equilibrium between coordination and harmonization.

The Development of Data Collection Tools to Measure Parent-Infant Closeness and Family-Centered Care in NICUs.

BackgroundPreterm and sick infants benefit from parent–infant closeness and family‐centered care (FCC) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Prospective and feasible tools are needed to measure these care practices to facilitate their implementation.AimsTo describe the development process of three prospective data collection tools that measure parent–infant closeness and the quality of FCC.MethodsData collection tools were developed in an iterative process consisting of three development cycles. Feedback was gathered from parents, staff, and researchers. The first stages of development focused on the content validity, appropriate scaling, and optimization of the response rate of these tools.ResultsThe study included parents of 490 infants and the nurses working at bedside in 15 NICUs in six countries. The Parent‐Infant Closeness Diary was developed to measure the daily duration of parental presence, holding, and skin‐to‐skin contact. The optimal duration for daily diaries was 14 consecutive days to maintain a good response rate. Parents provided reliable documentation of parent–infant closeness. Digital FCC tools covering the nine aspects of FCC for parents and nurses were developed to measure the quality of FCC. Participants provided answers on a 7‐point Likert scale. Parents’ response rates remained >50% for approximately 1 month, and the nurses’ mean response rate was 55% (39%–87%) for the 3‐month study period.Linking Evidence to ActionThese new tools provide prospective daily information to aid the implementation of parent–infant closeness and the quality of FCC in NICU in different countries. They can be used to study and evaluate the implementation of these clinical practices NICUs in an international context.

A basic study on the introduction of sickness benefit scheme in Korea

A basic study on the introduction of sickness benefit scheme in Korea

Social insurance reform and absenteeism in Vietnam

There has been very little research into sickness absence in Vietnam. This article reveals how the labor market might adjust to more generous illness benefits offered by the Vietnam Social Insurance Law. In the study, we combined the difference‐in‐differences and matching techniques and used data from four waves of the Vietnam Labor Force Survey. The results indicate that the generosity of the benefits positively links to both the incidence and the duration of sick leave. The article also sheds light on the mechanism underlying the relationship by disaggregating the effects on gender, income, and job tenure groups. The results support current government efforts to enhance the public social insurance system.Key Practitioner Message:•Sickness insurance affects sick leave incidence and duration;•Low‐income workers and female workers are sensitive to sickness benefits reform;•There is a link between job tenure and sick leave.

Do workplace health-promotion interventions targeting employees with poor health reduce sick-leave probability and disability rates?

Aims:This study aimed to investigate whether introducing workplace health-promotion interventions targeting employees with health problems or reduced work ability affected overall sick leave and disability risk.Methods:The study population comprised data from an establishment survey from 2010 identifying who had introduced workplace health promotion (the intervention) linked to register data on all employees and their sickness absence and disability pension uptake from 2000 through 2010.Results:Interventions had moderate effects due to varying efficacy in different parts of the labour market. Intervention success was more likely among white-collar workers (e.g. in public administration) compared to blue-collar workers (e.g. in manufacturing), probably due to variations in both organisational and technological constraints. Effects were small among men and moderate among older workers, particularly among women. Overall, disability risk reduction was accompanied by an increase in sickness absence. Sometimes, sickness absence increased in groups with no change in disability risk, suggesting that presenteeism in one group may increase absenteeism in other groups.Conclusions: Introducing workplace health-promotion interventions may prolong work careers in some labour-market segments. Financial incentives for Norwegian establishments to continue offering workplace health-promotion interventions may be improved, given the current financial model for disability pension and sickness benefits.

Gender Disparity and Potential Strategies for Improvement in Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology.

Discrimination in the workplace when documented is illegal but is seen to still exist in some forms whether based on culture, race, or gender. Each of these disparities warrants further discussion and study because of their significant impacts on hiring decisions, career advancement, and compensation. In this article, the authors have focused their attention on gender disparity in the fields of neurology and clinical neurophysiology and shared the data currently available to them. At a time when the field of clinical neurophysiology has seen enormous growth, gender disparity in leadership and compensation remain. Despite the increasing number of women entering the fields of neurology and clinical neurophysiology, women remain underrepresented in national leadership positions. Many women physicians report experiencing gender discrimination despite increasing efforts by universities and medical centers to improve inclusivity and diversity. Equity and inclusivity are not the same and there is a disconnect between the increased numbers of women and their shared experiences in the workplace. Implicit bias undermines the ability of women to advance in their careers. For neurologists, data indicate that the latest gender pay gap is $56,000 (24%), increased from $37,000 in 2015, and is one of the largest pay gaps in any medical specialty. One third of the top 12 medical schools in the United States require that maternity leave be taken through disability coverage and/or sick benefits, and most family leave policies constrain benefits to the discretion of departmental leadership. The authors recommend strategies to improve gender disparity include institutional training to Identify and overcome biases, changes to professional organizations and national scientific meeting structure, transparency in academic hiring, promotion and compensation, and mentorship and sponsorship programs.

Kilka uwag w sprawie zasiłku chorobowego dla doktorantów pobierających stypendia doktoranckie

Niniejszy artykuł omawia kwestię możliwości łączenia stypendium doktoranckiego z za-siłkiem chorobowym. Ustawodawca, umożliwiając doktorantom dobrowolne przystąpienie do ubez-pieczenia chorobowego, przyznał im również prawo do świadczeń z tego ubezpieczenia, jednak w praktyce może być ono całkowicie iluzoryczne. Doktoranci zachowują bowiem prawo do stypen-dium doktoranckiego, które przysługuje obligatoryjnie wszystkim doktorantom, również w okresie stwierdzonej niezdolności do pracy z powodu choroby. Jeśli stypendium to zakwalifikowane zosta-nie jako wynagrodzenie uzyskiwane w ramach naukowoprawnego zatrudnienia, przepisy ustawy zasiłkowej wykluczałyby możliwość uzyskania zasiłku chorobowego. Przystępowanie do ubezpie-czenia chorobowego byłoby w tej sytuacji niecelowe. Nieuznanie zaś stypendium za sui generis rodzaj wynagrodzenia pozwalałoby na jednoczesne pobieranie zasiłku chorobowego i stypendium, co byłoby niezgodne z celem i funkcją zasiłku chorobowego oraz z systemowymi założeniami pol-skiego systemu ubezpieczeń społecznych.

Office design as a risk factor for disability retirement: A prospective registry study of Norwegian employees.

Objectives:This aim of this study was to (i) examine differences in risk of subsequent disability retirement between employees working in cellular, shared, and open-plan offices and (ii) determine the contribution of gender, skill-level, work ability, medically certified sickness absence, leadership position, and personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) as confounders.Methods:Survey data on predictor variables combined with official objective registry data on disability retirement and sickness absence were extracted from a large Norwegian occupational cohort of office workers (N=6779, 53.5% women). Questionnaire data included the respondents’ office designs, comparing cellular, shared, and open-plan offices, demographic characteristics, workability, and personality factors. Objective data on disability retirement and medically certified sickness absence were extracted from the sickness and disability benefit register of the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration.Results:In the final fully adjusted model, employees working in shared [hazard rato (HR) 1.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.08–2.16] and open-plan (HR 1.95, 95% CI 1.31–2.90) offices had significantly higher risk of subsequent disability retirement compared to employees in cellular offices. Gender, work ability, medically certified sickness absence, and conscientiousness had independent direct effects on risk of disability retirement.Conclusion:This study shows that open and shared workspace designs have detrimental effects by increasing risk of disability retirement among office workers, even when taking other known predictive factors into account.

Gaps in social security protection of mobile persons: Options for filling these gaps

The effects of crossing borders can be advantageous or disadvantageous for the persons concerned; these are all part of the game and cannot be challenged on the basis of EU law. After all, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) does not provide powers for harmonisation, but only for coordination. However, the coordination rules themselves may make a person worse off when he or she makes use of the right to free movement. More precisely, such an effect may occur in combination with differences between national systems to which coordination rules are applied. One example is that the coordination rules provide that a person is subject to unemployment benefits in the country of residence and, as a result, if that person becomes ill, also to sickness benefit in that country. If the duration of sickness benefit in the country of residence is 52 weeks, but the waiting period for disability benefit (supposing, for instance, that this is (mainly) due from the country of employment) is 104 weeks, there is a gap of 52 weeks in protection. The relevance of such gaps is not to solve particular cases as such; after all, these are closely linked to particular national systems. The relevance lies in the more general approach that is now being developed by the Court of Justice to address such gaps. This will be useful in cases other than those discussed here and may be further developed in order to be codified in the Coordination Regulation.

Doctors that \u201cdoctor\u201d sickness certificates: cunning intelligence as an ability and possibly a virtue among Swedish GPs

The relations of power between healthcare-related institutions and the professionals that interact with them are changing. Generally, the institutions are gaining the upper hand. Consequently, the intellectual abilities necessary for professionals to pursue the internal goods of healthcare are changing as well. A concrete case is the struggle over sickness benefits in Sweden, in which the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) and physicians are important stakeholders. The SSIA has recently consolidated its power over the sickness certificates that doctors issue for their patients. The result has been a stricter gatekeeping of sickness benefits. In order to combat the inroads made by state institutions into sickness certification, and into the sphere of medical practice, some doctors have developed cunning “techniques” to maximize the chance to have their sickness certificates accepted by the SSIA. This article attempts to demonstrate that cunning intelligence—the ability of the weak to “outsmart” a stronger adversary—plays an important role in the practice of medicine. Cunning intelligence is not merely a defective form of prudence (phronesis), nor is it simply an instance of instrumental reason (techne), but rather an ability that occupies a distinct place among the intellectual abilities generally ascribed to professionals.

Sickness Benefits in the EU: Making Sense of Diversity

One of the hallmarks of the European Union (EU) Member States’ social protection systems, unlike that of other regions in the world, is the right to income protection in case of sickness. To differing extents, all EU countries provide three types of arrangements in case of sickness: a) sick leave; b) sick pay; and c) sickness benefits. Sick leave is the right to be absent from work during sickness and to return to one’s job when recovered; sick pay is the continued, time-limited, payment of (part of) the worker’s salary by the employer during a period of sickness; and sickness benefits are provided by the social protection system and are paid as a fixed rate of previous earnings or as a flat-rate amount Sick leave arrangements, and compensation in particular, is a sensitive topic on which the Member States have jealously defended their sovereign powers.

Associations of health literacy with socioeconomic position, health risk behavior, and health status: a large national population-based survey among Danish adults

BackgroundHealth literacy concerns the ability of citizens to meet the complex demands of health in modern society. Data on the distribution of health literacy in general populations and how health literacy impacts health behavior and general health remains scarce. The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of health literacy levels and associations of health literacy with socioeconomic position, health risk behavior, and health status at a population level.MethodsA nationwide cross-sectional survey linked to administrative registry data was applied to a randomly selected sample of 15,728 Danish individuals aged ≥25 years. By the short form HLS-EU-Q16 health literacy was measured for the domains of healthcare, disease prevention, and health promotion. Adjusted multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to estimate associations of health literacy with demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health risk behavior (physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, body weight), and health status (sickness benefits, self-assessed health).ResultsOverall, 9007 (57.3%) individuals responded to the survey. Nearly 4 in 10 respondents faced difficulties in accessing, understanding, appraising, and applying health information. Notably, 8.18% presented with inadequate health literacy and 30.94% with problematic health literacy. Adjusted for potential confounders, regression analyses showed that males, younger individuals, immigrants, individuals with basic education or income below the national average, and individuals receiving social benefits had substantially higher odds of inadequate health literacy. Among health behavior factors (smoking, high alcohol consumption, and inactivity), only physical behavior [sedentary: OR: 2.31 (95% CI: 1.81; 2.95)] was associated with inadequate health literacy in the adjusted models. The long-term health risk indicator body-weight showed that individuals with obesity [OR: 1.78 (95% CI: 1.39; 2.28)] had significantly higher odds of lower health literacy scores. Poor self-assessed health [OR: 4.03 (95% CI: 3.26; 5.00)] and payments of sickness absence compensation benefits [OR: 1.74 (95% CI: 1.35; 2.23)] were associated with lower health literacy scores.ConclusionsDespite a relatively highly educated population, the prevalence of inadequate health literacy is high. Inadequate health literacy is strongly associated with a low socioeconomic position, poor health status, inactivity, and overweight, but to a lesser extent with health behavior factors such as smoking and high alcohol consumption.

Coronavirus fallout threatens financial stability

▪ The coronavirus is set to sharply cut global growth and also risks sparking substantial levels of financial distress among both businesses and households, potentially cascading into the banking sector. The challenges this poses for policymakers is formidable. ▪ Financial vulnerabilities were evident in the corporate sector in many economies even before the virus struck, with rising debt, declining credit quality and worsening liquidity positions. Consumer‐facing sectors especially at risk from the impact of the virus tend to have weaker financial positions. ▪ There are also household fragilities. A large fraction of households ‐ often 40%–50% ‐ have limited liquid assets to tide them over if they cannot work. Access to sickness and unemployment benefits varies widely across economies. ▪ High levels of bad loans in some banking systems, most notably in Italy, could be exacerbated by the virus impact, threatening financial stability. High dollar debts in many economies outside the US are another risk factor. ▪ As well as containing the virus, policymakers need to consider imaginative approaches to prevent financial distress worsening the economic downturn, potentially including a need to rapidly backstop banks, firms, and households.

Social Workers’ Compensation Models and the Czech Statutory Employer Liability Insurance

Abstract Czech workers’ compensation is “exemplified” by the adoption of the Worker’s Accident Insurance Act in 2006, four deferments of its effective date and then complete annulment of the Act. A temporary settlement aimed at resolving the incompatibility of the communist model of workers’ compensation for work accidents and occupational illnesses with the transition to a market economy after 1989 involved the implementation of statutory employer liability insurance for work accidents and occupational illnesses, outsourced to two private insurance companies; the current Czech government does not seem to have a know how to deal with it. The objective of this paper is primarily to advise the government using primarily the formulation and comparison of four basic social workers’ compensation models and furthermore considering the existing sickness, pension and health insurance systems. The choice of a social model is namely a matter of public choice, but intensive lobbying also constitutes part of these processes. The analyses result in a recommendation to “dissolve” the statutory employer liability insurance into a jointly collected social insurance contribution for sickness and pension insurance, and partly to transform the current accident benefits into increased sickness and pension benefit assessments and partly to cancel them.

Las directrices de la jurisprudencia italiana sobre enfermedades profesionales derivadas de la exposición a campos electromagnéticos producidos por teléfonos móviles

This paper examines how Italy’s case law has dealt with work-related diseases (e.g. acoustic neuroma and parotid gland tumour) caused by cell phone use. In order to award workers sickness benefits, case law has ruled that some degree of probability might be sufficient to establish the cause-and-effect relationship between exposure to some risks and the development of a disease. In the authors’ view, this aspect confirms that labour laws fail to keep up with the new risks linked to technological innovation, especially in relation to new work environments, co-working areas e remote work. In order to deal with this issue, a starting point could be promoting interdisciplinary cooperation between scientific research, administration bodies and legal sciences.

Leave of absence due to depression.

Objective:to analyze the occurrence of leave of absence due to depression among workers.Method:census, descriptive-analytical study, with retrospective collection. Population composed of 2,267 workers on leave due to depression with data from the Unified Benefits Information System. The independent variables were: sex, age group, income; county, origin, number of leaves of absence and type of benefit. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were used and the chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were applied. The variables that presented a value of p≤0.20 were submitted to logistic regression.Results:there was a predominance of females, age ≥50 years, from the capital, with income of one to two minimum wages, urban origin and single removal. Single leaves of absence occurred mainly due to a mild depressive episode and the benefit granted to the significant majority was social security sickness benefit. Among those who were on leave of absence more than once, the main cause was recurrent depressive disorder, a current mild episode and, in terms of benefit, social security sickness benefit. There was a statistical association between total time and absence from work. In logistic regression, it was found that the time ≥60 days, was 3.1 times longer in recurrent depressive disorder.Conclusion:there were an expressive quantitative number of absences due to depression, in which it was observed, especially, that the absence time remained long.

World war and welfare legislation in western countries

This article examines the impact of the two world wars on welfare legislation in 16 western countries. We use Poisson regressions to test our hypothesis that war was a catalyst of welfare legislation, especially in countries that were heavily exposed to the dreadful effects of war. By welfare legislation, we mean the inaugural adoption and major reforms across four programmes (old age and disability benefits, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment compensation and family allowances). Our findings suggest that both world wars are key factors for explaining the timing of comprehensive welfare reforms and outweigh the significance of other factors such as regime type or level of economic development.

Long-term effects of extended unemployment benefits for older workers

This paper examines the long-term effects of extended unemployment benefits that older unemployed can receive until retirement in Finland. We consider a reform that increased the age threshold of this scheme from 55 to 57. Our estimates show that the reform increased employment over the remaining working career by seven months. Despite the corresponding reduction in unemployment, we find no evidence of significant effects on mortality or receipt of disability and sickness benefits, nor on spouse’s labor supply. The reform led to a fiscal impact of 15,000 Euros in increased net transfers paid by an average individual over the 10-year period.