Long-term sick leave penalizes career paths.

Summary Among private sector employees who were off work for more than one month during the year due to illness, 15% of women and 11% of men were unemployed or inactive the following year (compared with 7% and 4% respectively of employees who had not been off sick). This finding is not only attributable to the lower quality of the jobs held by people in poor health. It shows that sick leave has a penalizing effect on the career paths of both men and women. This effect is all the more marked the longer the period spent on sick leave. Maternity leave is more often followed by a year's inactivity than is long-term sick leave, but the majority of women who remain in employment after childbirth return to work without interruption. When they return to work, the formerly unemployed and the economically inactive take fewer sick leave days than other employed workers, indicating that they anticipate the risks of deteriorating career paths associated with these work stoppages.