Descriptive Results for Sickness Benefits

6.4.1. ACCESSIBILITY INDEx

The indicators employed to measure sickness benefits are marked by much greater stability over the observa-tion period than the variables gauging unemployment benefits. This holds in particular for the accessibility indicators. Minimum hours were varying in merely six countries between 1990 and 2008, mostly easing the condition (see table 6.13). Germany and Ireland low-ered the threshold from initially high levels (10 and 18 hours, respectively) to almost zero; Canada, Sweden, and the UK reduced their thresholds as well to fewer than four hours. Spain, by contrast, was the only coun-try to tighten its volume requirement by four hours. All in all in 2008, only a minority of countries required minimum hours to be greater than zero which means, in turn, that a total of eleven countries allowed access regardless of weekly working time. The strictest rules were in force in France, Denmark, Japan, and Canada (despite the easing), demanding more than ten hours.

Somewhat less strict were Belgium, Ireland, and the UK with less than ten hours. Japan, as with unemployment benefits, is an outlier through all years, offering sick pay only to employees with more than thirty hours a week, thereby effectively excluding the vast majority of atyp-ical workers.

Minimum weeks, just like minimum hours, show a high consistency too, yet with a slight tendency towards more restrictiveness (see table 6.14). In 2008, 12 of 19 countries in the data set defined a minimum weeks re-quirement of whom seven countries required 13 weeks or less. The toughest conditions were set by Canada and Ireland with more than thirty weeks; these were also the only countries where a pronounced tightening happened, increasing the threshold by no less than ten weeks. Norway, Germany, and Portugal also increased the number of weeks, but to a much smaller extent of about 2 to 4 weeks. Ireland, on the other hand, made its rather strict criteria more inclusive. Minimum hours and minimum weeks are hence much less challenging for sickness than for unemployment benefits.

The opposite is true for time frame, tending to be signif-icantly stricter for sickness benefits. In 2008, a minority of six countries defined no time frame at all, while just as many countries required all minimum weeks to be ac-cumulated without interruption. Even the less challeng-ing regulations expected in most cases that at least fifty percent of the time frame were to be filled with work, much more than was needed to qualify for unemploy-ment benefits. Canada, Germany, Spain and Portugal restricted their time frames in the observed period, Ire-land relaxed it.

Since there is less variation in the indicators, there is also less in the aggregated accessibility index (see ta-ble 6.16). During the observed 18 years, only Germa-ny, Ireland, and Spain notably changed their scores.

Table 6.13: Minimum Hours Table 6.14: Minimum Weeks

By 2008, access to sick pay was almost universal for atypical employees in Australia, Austria, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden. Somewhat less ac-cessible were sickness benefits in Denmark, Germany (declining from almost universal access in 1991), and Norway. More austere were rules in Belgium, Canada, France, New Zealand, Spain (losing about two points compared to 1990), Switzerland and the UK. Ireland almost tripled its score, but remained the second lowest ranking country in the index, with only Japan trailing further behind.

6.4.2. BENEFIT INDEx

FOR ATYPICAL EMPLOYEES

Replacement rates of sickness benefits varied more over time than the accessibility indicators, but still less than compared to unemployment benefits’ (see table 6.17).

They were also considerably higher than unemployment benefits’ and displayed less of a downward tendency. At the end of the observation period, Denmark was the most generous country almost overcompensating, but also Australia, Norway, New Zealand, and Switzerland completely replaced forfeited income due to illness.

Austria and Germany offered above average payments of more than eighty percent of former net wage. The ma-jority of countries chose replacements of between sev-enty and eighty percent. Finland, Canada, and France paid about sixty percent of former wage to sick workers,

characterising them as less generous schemes, undercut only by Ireland and the UK with the lowest replace-ment rates below fifty percent. The sharpest retrench-ment happened in Finland and the UK by up to twenty percentage points; Germany, Canada, and Sweden did the same on smaller scale of only about ten percentage points. By contrast, Ireland and Japan were raising re-placement rates by nearly ten percentage points.

Unlike replacement rates, benefit duration was marked by stability (see table 6.18). Its values of 2008 were widely in correspondence with those 18 years earli-er. The most generous rules by far had Sweden and Por-tugal, then came France, the Netherlands and Ireland;

the latter two being among the few countries to increase their durations. Slightly less generous was Germany.

The largest cluster of countries is formed between val-ues of about 4000 to 5000 total weeks (the UK joined

Table 6.15: Time Frame Table 6.16: Accessibility Index

Table 6.17: Replacement Rate for Atypical Workers

DESCRIPTIVE RESULTSFOR SICKNESS BENEFITS 77

this group in 1995, starting from a lower value), while Italy, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland ranked far behind.

Converted into the benefit index for atypical employ-ees, Sweden and Portugal turned out to be the highest ranking countries as they had the highest values for both duration and replacement rate. Most countries, however, showed medium index values between five and six. In this context, Ireland and the Netherlands need to be highlighted, being the only countries to substan-tially increase their scores. Austria and Belgium reached values between four and five over the entire time span, while Finland, even though its values initially equalled Austria’s and Belgium’s, decreased its score to below four through cuts to the replacement rate. The remaining countries formed a group of particularly less generous countries, the extremes being Japan, Australia, and New

Zealand. In case of the latter two this may come un-expectedly since they offer high replacement rates, but their index scores were inexorably dragged down by the unusually short duration of payments.

6.4.3. BENEFIT INDEx

FOR STANDARD EMPLOYEES

Replacement rates for standard employees were very similar to atypical employees’, in most countries even nearly identical (see table 6.20). Major exceptions were Belgium, Germany, and Spain where standard workers despite their higher wages received replacement rates about ten percentage points higher than their atypical colleagues. The opposite was true in an extreme way in Denmark where standard workers’ benefits were at least forty percentage points lower than atypical workers’.

In the UK, Canada, and Ireland a similar gap existed, amounting to about ten to twenty percentage points.

In all of these countries (except in the UK), atypical workers were doing considerably better in terms of re-placement rates; cuts have thus been concentrated on standard workers.

Sweden and Ireland stick out among other coun-tries in that sickness benefits can be received without any temporal limit (see table 6.21). In France and Spain, maximum duration was three years, in the Neth-erlands two years, Germany, Japan, and Spain allowed receipt of up to 78 weeks. Six countries limited sick pay

Table 6.18: Duration for Atypical Workers Table 6.19: Benefit Index for Atypical Workers

Table 6.20: Replacement Rates for Standard Workers

to about one year. Shorter durations existed only in Ita-ly, Switzerland, and Canada where 15 to 26 weeks were the maximum. Australia and New Zealand had the least generous regulations, granting merely one or two weeks of wage continuation. Changes occurred only in the Netherlands and the UK, both doubling the maximum length.

Accordingly, the final index looks very similar to the index for atypical workers (see table 6.22). Yet some exceptions stand out: Denmark, Ireland, and the UK show significantly smaller values because of lower replacement rates for standard employees. Japan, by contrast, offers high benefits to standard workers even though it denies them to atypical ones. Likewise, rules in Finland, France, Portugal, and Switzerland seem to privilege standard employees.