A household model for work absence

The economic incentives of work absence are empirically studied using a pan el of Swedish blue collar workers, both men and women, that either are marr ied or living with a spouse as married. A model for the daily absence decis ion is derived from standard economic utility theory. An estimable form for the annual number of absence days is obtained by considering the data gene rating process in some detail. The model is estimated, using the first two moments, with a generalized method of moment estimator. The panel structure of the data is explicitly considered and a positive dependence between the number of days absent in the two time periods is found for females. A 1% i ncrease in the cost will lead to a decrease in the mean number of days abse nt by 1.8 and 2.7% for females and males, respectively.