Sickness absence due to Covid test obligations in the workplace

As vaccines for Covid-19 became available, in 2021 many countries introduced an obligation for employees to provide proof of their Covid status in the workplace, in Germany also known as the 3G rule (vaccinated, recovered, tested). In view of the controversial debate, concerns arose that employees might attempt to circumvent this obligation by taking sick leave. For an empirical panel analysis we combine data from health insurance providers with epidemiological data for the German federal states. In fact, our findings do show that - while controlling for infection rates - a one percentage-point lower vaccination rate led to an increase in the sickness absence rate by 0.021 percentage points when the 3G rule came into effect.