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This paper presents evidence on how firms react to a more generous insurance against high sick pay costs. We exploit a reform launched in Sweden in 2015, which introduced different thresholds for insurance reimbursement depending on firm size. By comparing workers in smaller firms with workers in large firms over time, we evaluate the effects of the reform. We find no indication of changed behaviour among employees in the smallest firms (on average 15 employees), but an increase in sickness absence among those employed in middle-sized firms (on average 38 employees). The increased absence in middle-sized firms is entirely driven by new hires, but the newly hired employees do not seem to be differently selected. We find no evidence indicating that the more generous insurance made firms more inclined to employ more sick-prone individuals. Further analysis suggests that the absence of behavioural responses among employees in the smallest firms might be related to a large production loss from an absent worker, which the insurance cannot fully compensate for. Taken together, we find no support for any societal benefits of a more generous insurance against high sick pay costs in terms of an increased employment-probability among more sick-prone individuals.

We investigate whether exposure to immigrant peers at school affects natives' future interactions with ethnic minorities. Identification is based on variation in immigrant exposure across cohorts within school catchment areas in Sweden. We document that natives respond to immigrants by changing school and develop an IV strategy that accounts for such endogenous responses. Our results show that minority exposure at the extensive margin increases the probability that natives form inter-ethnic romantic partnerships, which is suggestive of altered preferences for interacting with immigrants. We also find that minority exposure affects women's educational choices and family formation decisions in a family-oriented direction.

We evaluate the effect of a preschool health intervention aimed at reducing infections through improved hygiene practices and training of the staff. The large-scale design enables us to study heterogeneous effects with respect to several child and preschool characteristics that are assumed to be associated with the initial level of absence, and thereby the potential magnitude of the effect. We find no reduction, on average, in children's illness-related absence. This conclusion holds across different age groups of preschool children, and for preschools with varying levels of absence before the intervention. However, we do find some evidence for a decline in illness-related absence among children enrolled in preschool sections with relatively few children. We find some empirical support for that the intervention consisted of components with opposing effects on illness-related absence, which may explain the zero average effect.

This study investigates possible reasons for the gender difference in sickness absence. We estimate both short- and long-term effects of parenthood in a within-couple analysis based on the timing of parenthood. We find that after entering parenthood, women increase their sickness absence by between 0.5 days per month (during the child's third year) and 0.85 days per month (during year 17) more than their spouse. By investigating possible explanations for the observed effect, we conclude that the effect mainly stems from higher home commitment, which reduces women's labour market attachment and, in turn, increases female sickness absence.

The aim of this study is to investigate the importance of intergenerational transmission of sick leave using universal Swedish register data on the rate of sickness benefits. We find that there is a positive correlation between parents' and their children's sick leave. The child-parent correlation is of about the same magnitude irrespective of the gender of the parent and the child, but it is larger the more sick leave the parent had when observed. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between the sick leave level of the children and that of the parents-in-law, implying that persons tend to live with a partner whose sick leave resembles that of their parents. Finally, a comparison between siblings of different birth order shows that firstborn daughters report fewer spells of sick leave than their younger siblings of the same gender. This gap only emerges in the group of daughters with parents who lack sick leave themselves, suggesting that the birth-order effect is only of importance among women with low levels of sick leave.

We compare the income and wage trajectories of women in relation to their male partners before and after parenthood. Focusing on the within-couple gap allows us to control for both observed and unobserved attributes of the spouse and to estimate both short- and long-term effects of entering parenthood. Our main finding is that 15 years after the first child was born, the male-female gender gaps in income and wages have increased with 35 and 10 percentage points, respectively. In line with a collective labor supply model, the magnitude of these effects depends on relative incomes or wages within the family.

Women account for the majority of parental leave take-up, which is likely one of the major reasons for the gender gap in income and wages. Consequently, many countries exert effort to promote a more gender equal division of parental leave. Indeed, the last decades have seen an increase in fathers’ take-up of parental leave benefits, but the gender earnings gap has remained fairly constant. In this paper we re-evaluate the labour supply responses of both mothers and fathers to three major reforms in the Swedish parental leave system, recognizing that take up of paid parental leave might not fully reflect actual time off from work in a system where job-protection exceeds paid leave. We find that both mothers and fathers decreased their labour supply to the same extent as a response to an increase in paid parental leave without gender restrictions. In contrast, we find no support for any changes in fathers’ labour supply due to reforms introducing gender quotas in paid leave.

During the last decade several empirical studies have stressed the importance of norms and social interactions for explaining sickness absence behavior. In this context public discussions about the intentions of the insurance, and of the rights and duties of the receivers, may be important for reducing the sickness absence. In this paper we study whether information meetings about the Swedish sickness insurance affect the length of sickness absence spells. The study is based on experimental data on individuals with weak labor market attachments. The displacement of when the call to the meeting was sent out was randomized. Comparing the survival functions of those called immediately with those whose calls were delayed (by about 30 days) makes it possible to study whether the length of sickness absence is affected by receiving the call earlier. The result suggests that the length is reduced by, on average, 20 percent. In the long term (12 months later) there is no effect of the information meeting. This suggests that attendance to the information meeting does not change individuals' long-term behavior.

Mixed-aged classes (MA-classes) are a common phenomenon around the world. In Sweden, these types of classes increased rapidly during the 1980:s and 1990:s. But the scientific evidence of the benefits of MA-classes is not convincing. In this paper, we estimate the effect of attending an MA-class during grades 4–6 on students’ cognitive skills. Using a unique survey with information on students, parents and teachers, we are able to control for many factors that could otherwise bias the results. We find a negative effect on the short-run cognitive skills, as measured by grade 6 cognitive tests.

This study compares results on national tests with teachers’ assessment of student performance, by using Swedish data of grade 9 students (16 years old). I examine whether there are systematic differences correlated with gender and ethnic background. That is, if the relationship between school leaving certificates and national test results differs between girls and boys or between natives and non-natives. The results show that girls are more generously rewarded in teachers’ assessment compared to test results in all three subjects studied. Non-native students are more generously rewarded in teachers’ assessment compared to test results in two out of three subjects studied.

This study investigates the importance of gender and ethnic interactions among teachers and students for school performance in Swedish, English and Mathematics. School leaving certificates assigned by the teacher is compared with results on comprehensive national tests. The analysis is based on data on grade 9 students (age 16) from Sweden. I find that a student is likely to obtain better test scores in Mathematics, when the share of teachers of the same gender as the student increases. Correspondingly, ethnic minority students, on average, obtain better test scores in Mathematics, when the share of ethnic minority teachers increases. The positive same-gender effect on test scores is counteracted by a negative assessment effect. That is, conditional on test scores, same-gender teachers are less generous than opposite-gender teachers when assessing students’ performance. In Swedish and English no statistically significant effects are found.

We analyze a model where the federal government provides risk sharing arrangements to municipalities investing in a local public good. The risk sharing arrangements are an income equalization system and a system allowing for a soft budget constraint, i.e., a bailout. Our main result is that a bailout system in combination with income equalization can be a more efficient risk sharing arrangement than an income equalization system only. Thus, the introduction of a bailout system is welfare improving.