Interaction of job disamenities, job satisfaction, and sickness absences: Evidence from a representative sample of Finnish workers

This paper explores the potential role of adverse working conditions in the determination of workers’ sickness absences. Our data contain detailed information on the prevalence of job disamenities at the workplace from a representative sample of Finnish workers. The results from reduced-form models reveal that workers facing adverse working conditions tend to have a greater number of sickness absences. In addition, reduced-form models clearly show that regional labour market conditions are an important determinant of sickness absences. Hence, sickness absences are more common in regions of low unemployment. Recursive models suggest that job disamenities are associated with job dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction with workers’ sickness absences.