Sickness absence due to mandatory COVID-19 certificates in the workplace

BACKGROUND: As vaccines for COVID-19 became available, many countries introduced an obligation in 2021 for employees to prove their COVID-19 status at work, known in Germany as the 3G rule (vaccinated, recovered, tested). In view of the controversial debate, there was concern that employees might try to avoid providing mandatory COVID-19 certificates by taking sick leave. The aim of this study was to investigate whether mandatory COVID-19 tests in the workplace led to such an evasive response. METHOD: For an empirical panel analysis, we collected data from official sources and combined aggregated health insurance data on sick leave, epidemiological data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections, and vaccination rates for the German states from September 2021 to January 2022. We used a regional panel data analysis to estimate the impact of the mandatory COVID-19 certificates at the workplace on workers’ sick leave. The regional vaccination rate reflected differences in treatment intensity. RESULTS: This study contributes to the limited evidence on the potential impact of introducing mandatory COVID-19 certificates at the workplace on sickness absence rates. In fact, our results showed that after controlling for infection rates, a one percentage point lower vaccination rate led to a 0.021 percentage point increase in the sickness absence rate when the 3G rule came into effect. This effect was measured with high statistical precision. In addition, in robustness checks, we controlled for a number of other possible influencing factors that may have affected sickness behaviours, such as time-varying labour market situations. However, the results remained robust. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our empirical panel analysis implied that mandatory COVID-19 certificates in the workplace led to evasive responses and to additional days of sick leave of a relevant magnitude. Testing obligations were meant to help contain the epidemic. However, when introducing controversial obligations, it is important to consider evasive responses and to design the rules appropriately and communicate them convincingly. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-16415-y.