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Long Sickness Absence Differences Between Natives and Immigrant Workers: The Role of Differences in Self-reported Health

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Abstract

The limited empirical evidence on sickness absence among immigrants indicates that non-Western immigrants have a higher incidence of sickness-related absence than natives. The purpose of this article is to examine whether health is a contributing factor to the immigrant-native sickness absence gap. The present article makes use of two data sources: register data (FD-trygd) with labour market and long-term sickness absence information linked to a cross-section questionnaire survey on health: The Oslo Health Study, which was conducted in 2000–2001 (N = 14,114). The findings in this article show that non-Western immigrants have a higher incidence of long-term sickness absence than natives. For both women and men, the differences in long-term sickness absence between non-Western immigrants and natives can be explained by poorer self-reported health among immigrants.

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Notes

  1. By May 2009, the basic amount was equal to 72,881 Norwegian kroner; 6G (6 times) then equals 437,286 Norwegian kroner, or approximately 52,000 euros.

  2. Non-Western immigrants include individuals born in Asia (including Turkey), Africa, South America and Central and Eastern European countries, with two foreign-born parents. Western immigrants include the rest. We follow the definitions in Statistics Norway.

  3. We have individual information on mortality in the period 2001–2008 and have undertaken an analysis where a binary measure of mortality is regressed against the variables measuring subjective health. The results reveal a positive and significant relationship between reporting poor health and the likelihood of dying in the period 2001–2008. Thus, in the author’s material, the subjective health measure correlates well with objective measures of health, such as mortality. The scarcity of mortality observations of non-Western immigrants during this period does not enable us to analyse whether the relationship is different between natives and immigrants.

  4. We know that sickness absence behaviour is different for men and women. Therefore, there are good reasons for estimating them separately. A simple F test does also show that separate analyses are warranted.

  5. In an earlier specification, we also included years since migration as an explanatory variable (natives’ value set to zero). The coefficient of this variable turned out insignificant and was therefore left out in the final specification.

  6. Due to space limitations, we only present results for the immigrant variables. Results for the specific health variables are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank seminar participants at the Institute for Social Research for their fruitful comments and suggestions. The work is financed by the Norwegian Research Council project: “On the margins—sickness absence and labour market exclusion in high-risk groups. The case of immigrants” under grant number (201534) and “Trygd i kontekst. Rettferdighet, Effektivitet” under grant number (199836). The financial support is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Institute for Social Research, PB 3233, Elisenberg, 0208, Oslo, Norway

    Idunn Brekke & Pål Schøne

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  1. Idunn Brekke
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Correspondence to Idunn Brekke.

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Brekke, I., Schøne, P. Long Sickness Absence Differences Between Natives and Immigrant Workers: The Role of Differences in Self-reported Health. Int. Migration & Integration 15, 217–235 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-013-0276-6

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