DP10055 Workplace health promotion and labour market performance of employees

Author(s):	Martin Huber, Michael Lechner, Conny Wunsch
Publication Date:	July 2014
Keyword(s):	analysis of sickness absenteeism, firm health policies, health circles, health courses, matching
JEL(s):	I10, I19, J32
Programme Areas:	Labour Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10055

This paper investigates the average effects of (firm-provided) workplace health promotion measures in form of the analysis of sickness absenteeism and health circles/courses on labour market out¬comes of the firms? employees. Exploiting linked employer-employee panel data that consist of rich survey-based and administrative information on firms, workers and regions, we apply a flexible propensity score matching approach that controls for selection on observables as well as on time-constant unob¬served fac¬tors. While the effects of analysing sickness absenteeism appear to be rather limited, our results suggest that health circles/courses increase tenure and decrease the number of job changes across various age groups. A key finding is that health circles/courses strengthen the labour force attachment of elderly em¬ployees (51-60), implying potential cost savings for public transfer schemes such as unemployment or early retirement benefits.