Sickness absence in gender-equal companies : a register study at organizational level

Background: The differences in sickness absence between men and women in Sweden have attracted a great deal of interest nationally in the media and among policymakers over a long period. The fact that women have much higher levels of sickness absence has been explained in various ways. These explanations are contextual and one of the theories points to the lack of gender equality as an explanation. In this study, we evaluate the impact of gender equality on health at organizational level. Gender equality is measured by an index ranking companies at organizational level; health is measured as days on sickness benefit. Methods: Gender equality was measured using the Organizational Gender Gap Index or OGGI, which is constructed on the basis of six variables accessible in Swedish official registers. Each variable corresponds to a key word illustrating the interim objectives of the "National Plan for Gender Equality", implemented by the Swedish Parliament in 2006. Health is measured by a variable, days on sickness benefit, also accessible in the same registers. Result: We found significant associations between company gender equality and days on sickness benefit. In gender-equal companies, the risk for days on sickness benefit was 1.7 (95% CI 1.6-1.8) higher than in gender-unequal companies. The differences were greater for men than for women: OR 1.8 (95% CI 1.7-2.0) compared to OR 1.4 (95% CI 1.3-1.5). Conclusions: Even though employees at gender-equal companies had more days on sickness benefit, the differences between men and women in this measure were smaller in gender-equal companies. Gender equality appears to alter health patterns, converging the differences between men and women.Funding: Umeå Centre for Global Health, Umeå University, and the Umeå Centre for Gender Studies, Umeå University.</p

The Long-Term Care Insurance Program in Israel: solidarity with the elderly in a changing society

<p>Abstract</p> <p>The Long-Term Care Insurance Program (LTCIP) in Israel is a social security program administered by the National Insurance Institute (NII) since 1988. LTCIP focuses on home-based personal care services. Differently from most other programs under the responsibility of the NII, LTCIP benefits are in-kind benefits and are delivered via multiple for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. In recent years LTCIP has been the target of various legal amendments and numerous administrative changes. While many of these changes may have had significant effects on individuals, they have not altered the fundamental principles of the program. Thus, many of the characteristics of beneficiaries have remained quite stable over the years; other characteristics of the population of beneficiaries have changed over the years reflecting the aging of Israeli society. A central issue related to LTCIP is whether benefits are adequate to meet the needs of the growing elderly population of Israel. While the generosity of LTCIP benefits is questionable, economic and political struggles have limited the scope of changes introduced thus far.</p

The Impacts of Persistent Behaviour and Cost Sharing Policy on Demand for Outpatient Visits by the Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance.

[[abstract]]Establishing how to reform the cost-sharing policy to reduce waste in health-care utilisation is an important issue, especially in an ageing society. Using a generalised method of moments (GMM) for the dynamic panel count model during the period 1997–2007 from the National Health Insurance (NHI) programme in Taiwan, this study examines the effects of persistent behaviour and the cost-sharing policy on outpatient medical utilisation for Taiwan’s elderly. Empirically, we find positive and negative coefficient estimations for persistent behaviour and price elasticity, respectively, thereby creating a clear trade-off effect of the cost-sharing policy on health-care utilisation. Furthermore, our study finds that the short-run price elasticity (−0.2561) is always smaller than long-run elasticity (−0.4052). Finally, the empirical results indicate that the price elasticity for females and patients with high medical expenditure, low income, high chronic diseases and good health is higher than that for males and patients with low medical expenditure, high income, low chronic diseases and bad health.[[notice]]補正完