Accepted in the Journal of Health Economics
A new paper by Julie Riise, Barton Willage, and Alexander L.P. Willén finds that greater parental sick leave access reduces children's academic and educational outcomes.
Using comprehensive administrative data from Norway and a unique natural experiment—where patients are randomly reassigned to general practitioners (GPs) with varying tendencies to certify sick leave—the researchers examine how increased parental use of sick leave affects children.
They find that parents who are assigned to more lenient GPs take significantly more sick leave—on average 12 extra days in the following year. This increase, while seemingly modest, has measurable impacts on their children: lower GPAs in both lower and upper secondary school, reduced likelihood of completing high school, and decreased enrollment in higher education.
These effects appear to operate not through medical need but through changes in parents’ career trajectories and well-being. More sick leave correlates with lower earnings, greater welfare dependence, and a deterioration in mental health—all of which shape the home environment in ways that affect children’s development. Notably, the negative effects are most pronounced when the child is in early adolescence, a period particularly sensitive to parental influence and stress.
Importantly, the study focuses on marginal cases—parents whose access to sick leave is influenced by their doctor’s discretion. The findings do not imply that sick leave programs are harmful overall, but rather that even small shifts in access, when guided by subjective medical judgment, can carry broader intergenerational consequences.
The paper highlights how social insurance programs, while crucial for protecting workers, also shape family dynamics and future opportunities for the next generation. In doing so, it adds a new dimension to our understanding of welfare policies and their long-term implications.