The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers
We study how public school teachers use paid sick leave. Most U.S. sick leave schemes operate as individualized credit accounts – paid leave is earned and unused leave accumulates, producing an employee-specific leave balance. We construct a unique data set from administrative records containing the daily balances and leave behavior of 982 teachers from 2010- 2018. We find that sick leave use increases during flu season. We do not find evidence that the average teacher uses sick leave for leisure; however, there is evidence of such behavior among certain subsets of teachers (e.g., young, inexperienced teachers). Usage increases with leave balance; the elasticity is around 0.4. Further, higher balances reduce the likelihood that teachers work sick, particularly during flu season.
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Copy CitationChristopher J. Cronin, Matthew C. Harris, and Nicolas R. Ziebarth, "The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers," NBER Working Paper 29956 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3386/w29956.
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