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Child-to-teacher ratio and day care teacher sickness absenteeism

Gortz, Mette and Andersson, Elvira LU (2014) In Health Economics 23(12). p.1430-1442
Abstract
The literature on occupational health points to work pressure as a trigger of sickness absence. However, reliable, objective measures of work pressure are in short supply. This paper uses Danish day care teachers as an ideal case for analysing whether work pressure measured by the child-to-teacher ratio, that is, the number of children per teacher in an institution, affects teacher sickness absenteeism. We control for individual teacher characteristics, workplace characteristics, and family background characteristics of the children in the day care institutions. We perform estimations for two time periods, 2002-2003 and 2005-2006, by using generalized method of moments with lagged levels of the child-to-teacher ratio as instrument. Our... (More)
The literature on occupational health points to work pressure as a trigger of sickness absence. However, reliable, objective measures of work pressure are in short supply. This paper uses Danish day care teachers as an ideal case for analysing whether work pressure measured by the child-to-teacher ratio, that is, the number of children per teacher in an institution, affects teacher sickness absenteeism. We control for individual teacher characteristics, workplace characteristics, and family background characteristics of the children in the day care institutions. We perform estimations for two time periods, 2002-2003 and 2005-2006, by using generalized method of moments with lagged levels of the child-to-teacher ratio as instrument. Our estimation results are somewhat mixed. Generally, the results indicate that the child-to-teacher ratio is positively related to short-term sickness absence for nursery care teachers, but not for preschool teachers. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. (Less)
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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
work pressure, sickness absence, day care
in
Health Economics
volume
23
issue
12
pages
1430 - 1442
publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
external identifiers
  • wos:000344745300003
  • scopus:84927698623
  • pmid:24123527
ISSN
1099-1050
DOI
10.1002/hec.2994
project
Essays on the Empirical Relationship between Health Outcomes and Economic Outcomes
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
70eb4a5b-6b1e-474c-85a6-65b668cc1e12 (old id 4865151)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:31:18
date last changed
2022-02-02 18:35:55
@article{70eb4a5b-6b1e-474c-85a6-65b668cc1e12,
  abstract     = {{The literature on occupational health points to work pressure as a trigger of sickness absence. However, reliable, objective measures of work pressure are in short supply. This paper uses Danish day care teachers as an ideal case for analysing whether work pressure measured by the child-to-teacher ratio, that is, the number of children per teacher in an institution, affects teacher sickness absenteeism. We control for individual teacher characteristics, workplace characteristics, and family background characteristics of the children in the day care institutions. We perform estimations for two time periods, 2002-2003 and 2005-2006, by using generalized method of moments with lagged levels of the child-to-teacher ratio as instrument. Our estimation results are somewhat mixed. Generally, the results indicate that the child-to-teacher ratio is positively related to short-term sickness absence for nursery care teachers, but not for preschool teachers. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.}},
  author       = {{Gortz, Mette and Andersson, Elvira}},
  issn         = {{1099-1050}},
  keywords     = {{work pressure; sickness absence; day care}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{12}},
  pages        = {{1430--1442}},
  publisher    = {{John Wiley & Sons Inc.}},
  series       = {{Health Economics}},
  title        = {{Child-to-teacher ratio and day care teacher sickness absenteeism}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.2994}},
  doi          = {{10.1002/hec.2994}},
  volume       = {{23}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}