6533b85dfe1ef96bd12bf06c

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Organizational justice, sickness absence and employee age

subject

description

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study age-related differences in how perceptions of two forms of organizational justice, i.e. procedural and interactional justice, are related to short (i.e. non-certified) spells and long (i.e. medically certified) spells of sickness absence. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a study on a large sample of Finnish public sector employees (n=37,324), in which they matched employees' 2004 survey data with their records-based sick absences in 2005 and 2006. Findings – The results suggest that age moderates the association between perceptions of procedural justice and long sickness absences after controlling for gender, tenure, occupational group, work unit, job demands and health behaviors. When older employees experienced a high level of procedural justice, they were 12 percent less likely to miss work due to medically certified illnesses. Overall, older employees were less likely to take short, non-certified sickness absences from work. Finally, the r...