Comment |  In Sweden, female employees’ absence through illness has dropped by 900 thousand work hours per week in the last three years. A new study reveals historically low absence figures.

For companies in a Swedish Enterprise time study, absence through illness has never been so low. This is corroborated by figures from the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics. Over a three-year period ending in 2009, sick leave dropped from the equivalent of 5 percent of the work force to 3.5 percent — the equivalent of 41,000 full-time jobs.

Government policy should be viewed and judged against this background. The previous, social democratic government made some inroads in what was an abnormally high absence-through-sickness statistic, but with only limited success. Today, a rough estimate is that at least 60 percent of those who discontinue sickness benefits go back to work, reflected in the increase in the number of hours worked.

This is almost entirely because women are working more. While women’s hours worked per week rose by 2.1 million, the increase for men was only 400,000 hours. Since women are ill more often than men, the reduction in their absence through sickness can be an important factor in the welcome rise.

An unhealthy trend has turned; absence through illness is now at an historic low. And the patterns have changed. Normally, absences are low in bad times, increasing in good. But the current drop was registered even during the good times of 2006-07. And the number of disability retirements is dropping for the first time.

Less absence through illness is significant for two reasons: Firstly, it’s important for everyone who has previously been stuck in a long illness. Secondly, we have a huge problem if the total number of hours worked is not rising. The renowned demographic challenge demands it.

Sweden’s Institute of Economic Research (Konjunkturinstitutet) has correctly noted that more hours must be worked to meet the rising costs of an aging population. The Institute, warning against raising taxes since that leads to a reduction in job offers, wants instead to see absence through illness to be reduced. A spur was the rocketing upward curve of absences that showed no signs of flattening out, pushing up costs for sickness benefits by nearly 300% from 1997 to 2002.

Disability benefits in the past decade cost even more. Almost 800 000 people (of a population of 9m) were more or less permanently removed from the workforce because of sickness or early retirement through disability.

A recent study commissioned by Swedish Enterprise and carried out by the Demoskop research consultancy shows that a broad section of the population wants to stop the over-use of sickness benefits. A widely held belief is that severely ill people should not need to work. At the same time, half those asked say that benefit cheating is widespread in Sweden and that the checks are not working. Three of four people polled believe strongly or moderately that cheaters must be punished harder. More than six of ten think that people able to work should take the jobs they’re offered. Many also say that working doesn’t pay enough.

At the turn of the year, sickness benefits expired for 15 000 Swedes. People are worried about what happens to them. Critics might claim that the current sickness benefit reform was introduced too fast, and the government should keep an eye on how this group is treated by the bureaucracy of the unemployment benefit funds. But it is untenable for society to have absences through illness turn into absence with no return. How many of the 15 000 who will go back to work is hard to estimate. But the increased job choices for those who have been taken off benefits give reason for optimism.

Björn Lindgren