25(30)
Table 8.
Difference in sickness absence between first- and later-born
siblings of the same gender, separately depending on whether
either parent has sickness absence or not
Dependent variable: the child’s average sickness absence days 0–365
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Daughters
Firstborn (=1, otherwise 0)
-2.599*** -1.806*** -3.831***
(0.276)
(0.525)
(0.648)
Parent-couple fixed effects
1
No
Yes
Yes
If either parent has sickness absence (=1,
otherwise 0)*firstborn (=1, otherwise 0
)
2.911***
(0.697)
Observations
248 382
Sons
Firstborn (=1, otherwise 0)
-1.262*** -1.192***
-0.786
(0.211)
(0.406)
(0.506)
Parent-couple fixed effects
1
No
Yes
Yes
If either parent has sickness absence (=1,
otherwise 0)*first born (=1, otherwise 0)
-0.586
(0.536)
Observations
278 700
Note: 1) Parent-couple fixed effect means that we control for the specific level of
sickness absence among the biological parents – each parent couple, except for one
couple, has its own indicator taking the value one, and zero otherwise. We start
counting the number of days absent with sickness benefits from the fourth week
and with disability pension from the first day within a sickness absence spell. In all
the models, we control for the child’s age and age squared. Standard errors are in
parentheses. The standard errors are clustered at the parent-couple level. Statistical
significance: *** p<0.01.
