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The Effect of the 2009 Influenza Pandemic on Absence from Work
Author(s) -
Duarte Fabian,
Kadiyala Srikanth,
Masters Samuel H.,
Powell David
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.3485
Subject(s) - pandemic , influenza pandemic , sick leave , productivity , demography , covid-19 , sample (material) , medicine , work (physics) , health care , demographic economics , economics , economic growth , sociology , physical therapy , mechanical engineering , chemistry , disease , chromatography , infectious disease (medical specialty) , engineering
In July 2009, the World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic in nearly 40 years. Although the health effects of the pandemic have been studied, there is little research examining the labor productivity consequences. Using unique sick leave data from the Chilean private health insurance system, we estimate the effect of the pandemic on missed days of work. We estimate that the pandemic increased mean flu days missed by 0.042 days per person‐month during the 2009 peak winter months (June and July), representing an 800% increase in missed days relative to the sample mean. Calculations using the estimated effect imply a minimum 0.2% reduction in Chile's labor supply. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.