The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers

We study how public school teachers use paid sick leave. Most U.S. sick leave schemes operate as individualized credit accounts – paid leave is earned and unused leave accumulates, producing an employee-specific leave balance. We construct a unique data set from administrative records containing the daily balances and leave behavior of 982 teachers from 2010- 2018. We find that sick leave use increases during flu season. We do not find evidence that the average teacher uses sick leave for leisure; however, there is evidence of such behavior among certain subsets of teachers (e.g., young, inexperienced teachers). Usage increases with leave balance; the elasticity is around 0.4. Further, higher balances reduce the likelihood that teachers work sick, particularly during flu season.

Cronin, Chris, Matt Harris and Nicolas R. Ziebarth (forthcoming), The Anatomy of U.S. Sick Leave Schemes: Evidence from Public School Teachers, The Review of Economics and Statistics