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When you are a consultant working out of your home,debating whether or not to take a sick day is not a huge business issue. Since many of us tend to have unhealthy work habits anyway, a sick day may simply mean working in bed, taking a few naps, and not bothering to brush our hair or get out of our jammies.
But sick days are a big deal for anyone who gets a regular paycheck every other Friday. The latest research does little to calm the gender wars incorporate America because it finds that all women--regardless of marital status,age, or whether they have children, take more sick days then their male colleagues. The emphasis is on American.
As it turns out, a study in Europe shows that European men hold the prize for taking the most sick days.
Sweden also stands out in the study by Gimeno and Amick because it is one of only three countries in the EU — along with Finland and Belgium — where more women reported taking a sick day than men.
In all the other 12 countries, men were more likely to report taking a sick day, often by a large margin.
Austria had the largest disparity, with 20.4 percent of men reporting having taken a sick day, compared with just 12.1 percent of women.
In Britain, it was 13.3 percent for men and 10 percent for women. In Portugal, it was 10.1 percent for men and 6.8 percent for women.
What explains the difference? Are women the stronger sex after all? The authors say they don't really know.
So here's something that the U.S. and Europe have in common. American researchers are scratching their heads trying to attribute why women in the U.S. take more sick days. They have no solid explanation.
Eve Tahmincioglu writing extensively about this issue on on her blog for MSNBC.com reports,
Making assumptions on why women call in sick can be detrimental to the advancement of women in the workplace, says Eric Patton, an assistant professor of management at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
As part of his research on how workplace absence is perceived, Patton studied a century’s worth of New York Times articles that dealt with the issue. He found 3,000 articles on the topic.
“Whenever it was an article about women’s absenteeism it was about gender. If it was about men and absenteeism, gender was not brought up,” he says.
That focus on gender, he adds, has created a situation where co-workers and managers expect women to be absent more often, and that, in turn, can creates an air of unreliability around female employees.
Maybe its our philosophy about sick days. It's like seeing the very expensive pair of shoes you've been coveting all season on deep discount and walking away without buying them. Who would do that?
If a company has factored in your sick days into their bottom line calculations, why shouldn't you take the time you are entitled to?
While I can't remember how many sick days I technically had on my first job as a reporter at WWBT TV in Richmond, Virginia, I know that I thought it would be stupid to not use every single one of them. And I did.
In fact, it was my news director who encouraged me to take "mental health" days. I have no idea if he shared this concept,which was probably considered quite forward in 1973, with all the male reporters. I didn't care. I wanted me some mental health days and I had a boss who said use those sick days and refresh.
Luanne At Fifty is a proponent of the mental health day.
When I was teaching, we were allotted ten sick days a school year. For me, maybe one out of ten would be used for an actual personal illness. Another might be used for a family member's illness. A few would be used throughout the year to catch up on grading papers or planning. But the best use of a sick day was when I took a mental health day. Today I took a mental health morning.No, I'm not actually employed any more outside the home. But I still remember that feeling, that thrill that accompanies "playing hooky". Today I felt the urge coming on, so I went with it.
While many of us have the luxury of taking a mental health day, far too many people don't have the option to take a sick day at all. It
