Do women really take more sick leave?

From 3 NEWS, last week: Mr Thompson went on radio this morning to debate gender inequality – it was largely uncontroversial until he tried to explain why women are paid, on average, 12 percent less than men.”Look at who takes the most sick leave,” said Mr Thompson. “Because you know, once a month they have sick problem. Not all women, but some do. They have children and they have to take leave off.”

In New Zealand there does not seem to be any comprehensive information on sick leave differences for men and women, but other countries collect this information, including Sweden, the UK, and Australia, and NZ information is available for public employees.

• The Public Services Association (the government employees’ union) obtained data under the Official Information Act. The figures based on 2010 data in the State Services Commission’s Human Resources Capability Study show that in 2010 men took on average 6.8 days sick and domestic leave annually while women took 8.4 days.
• In the UK, the 2004 Labour Force Survey showed that about 1.4% of men and 2.1% of women were taking sick leave on any given day. The gap between men and women showed up at all ages, but was largest for 25-34 year olds.  The survey also asked about children: the gap between men and women was smallest when there was a child under 5 in the household, and largest when the youngest child was 5-10.  Single parents, male or female, had the highest rates of sick-leave absence, with nearly 5% missing work for at least one day during the week they were sampled.  A less-detailed report from 2010 shows about the same difference between men and women
• The last Australia Bureau of Statistics report on sick-leave differences between men and women dates from 1995.  Over a two-week period, 9.3% of men and 10.3% of women took at least three hours’ sick-leave. As with the UK data, the difference was larger for people under 34. In the over-55 age group, men were slightly more likely than women to take sick leave.
• In Sweden, quarterly data are available right up to 2010. The number of sick days taken per quarter is about 1.5 for women and about 1.0 for men (more in winter, less in summer).
• A (highly technical) report from the US National Bureau of Economic Research looks at whether there are periodic cycles in women’s sick leave, and finds that there is no real evidence. Differences between men and women do appear to have a weak 28-day periodicity, but so do differences between older and younger men, showing that it isn’t PMS that’s the explanation.

Although the data are not as complete as we might like, there is a consistent picture across the world where data is available.  On average, women do take more sick days than men, but it’s not a big deal. Two or three days a year seems to be a reasonable estimate of the difference, and there’s no way that explains any meaningful fraction of a 12% difference in pay.   It’s also worth noting that the pay gap between men and women varies enormously around the world — it’s almost twice as large in the UK as in NZ — but the sick-leave differences are much the same.