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Sick of Being Unemployed? Interactions between Unemployment and Sickness Insurance
Author(s) -
Larsson Laura
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2006.00443.x
Subject(s) - unemployment , incentive , sick leave , economics , social insurance , compensation (psychology) , demographic economics , labour economics , actuarial science , economic growth , psychology , microeconomics , market economy , psychoanalysis
This paper examines the incentive effects of interactions between unemployment insurance (UI) and sickness insurance (SI), two important components of Sweden's social insurance system. The main topic is how the sickness‐report rate among the unemployed is affected by (i) the limit of 300 workdays for UI benefits, and (ii) the difference in maximum compensation between UI and SI benefits. Results obtained by duration analysis suggest that sick reports increase as the UI benefit expiration date approaches. There is also evidence of an incentive effect on the sick‐report rate because SI offers higher compensation than UI.