APEPP

The stated objective of our project is to bring new elements of understanding to the phenomenon of sickness absenteeism of workers. In a social context of control of health insurance expenses but also of managerial innovations disrupting the organization of companies and ways of working to cope with the imperatives of the competition, it is essential to explain the recent growth of the absenteeism at work. It is also important for health and well-being at work issues and the objective of work sustainability stated by the government authorities, through recommended measures of prevention, in the Plans for Health and Work (“Plan Sante-Travail”), particularly. To meet this objective, we propose a project articulated in two distinct parts. The purpose of the first part is to evaluate the effects of the reforms of the sickness insurance system and of the statutory retirement age in the private and public sectors on the absenteeism of workers. The purpose of these reforms is to monitor social insurance expenses and promote equity. For the private sector, the National Interbranch Agreement (ANI) of January 2008 changed the rules relative to the waiting period for the payment of additional benefits in case of sick leave, making those rules more favorable for employees. The reform on the retirement age of 2010 provides for an increase in retirement age, leading to a significant increase in careers length. Finally, in the public sector, two successive reforms in 2012 and 2014 instituted and then abolished a one- day waiting period in the case of sick leave. We therefore have an ideal legislative framework for measuring the effects of these reforms on absenteeism. This part will be divided into three tasks. Firstly, the impact of thetwo components of the ANI 2008 will be evaluated on the level of employees’ absenteeism, namely the reduction of the waiting period for the payment of benefits and the reduction of seniority to be qualified for it. Secondly, we will measure the impact of the waiting period of one day on sick leave in the local and hospital public sectors. Finally, the impact of the 2010 reformof pensions on sick leave will be examined. The second part is also articulated in three tasks. It focuses on the impact of employers' organizational practices on the absenteeism of workers, measured by the number and duration of sick leaves, related to sickness, work accidents and occupational diseases. Several aspects of these practices will be taken into account. First, we will examine the consequences of organizational changes in companies on sick leaves. Do these changes, whose purpose among others is the efficiency of work, have also a virtuous effect on workers’ health? Then, we will analyze how employees’ health and safety are protected in companies, according to their managerial choices. We proposed here to draw up a typology of preventive measures implemented according to the organizational contexts of firms and to measure their effects on the observed level of occupational accidents and diseases. In the last task, we are interested in a phenomenon less studied but apparently more expensive than absenteeism, presenteeism, defined as the presence at work of an employee while he is sick. A first step will consist in the analysis of the organizational determinants of presenteeism, the second in the effects of presenteeism on later sickness absences. All of this work will be done by a team from three research centers. Several steps of validation of the work are planned over the project, via the validation by a scientific committee, the submission of papers to conferences and finally the organization of a workshop at the end of the project. Each task can lead to one or more articles in academic reviews.