Work effort varies greatly across employees, as evidenced by substantial differences in absence rates. Moreover, absenteeism causes sizeable output losses. Using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), this paper investigates absence behaviour of family employees, i.e. workers who are employed in enterprises owned by a relative. Our estimates indicate that being a family employee instead of a regular employee in the private sector significantly reduces both the probability and duration of absence to a substantial degree.

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doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2014.01.023, hdl.handle.net/1765/62394
ERIM Top-Core Articles
Economics Letters
Erasmus Research Institute of Management

Block, J., Goerke, L., Millán, J. M., & Román, C. (2014). Family employees and absenteeism. Economics Letters, 123(1), 94–99. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2014.01.023