The study investigates whether sick leave for the unemployed is used to address problems of labour market integration – a process that can theoretically be conceptualised as the medicalisation of unemployment. Estimating a multilevel logistic regression model on a sample of N = 20,196 individuals from the German panel study Labour Market and Social Security (PASS) reveals that, on average, 18% of the unemployed are on sick leave due to poor health. However, given a comparable state of health, the probability increases for men, older individuals and those with lower educational levels. These findings are crucial as they reveal a dual role of sick leave in a context with limited access to disability pensions: as a protective measure for sick, unemployed individuals and as medicalisation of unemployment by excluding those who face non-medical barriers to labour market integration.

中文翻译：

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失业医疗化：使用三层次模型对德国失业者病假进行分析

该研究调查了失业者病假是否被用来解决劳动力市场一体化问题——理论上可以将这一过程概念化为失业的医疗化。对德国劳动力市场和社会保障 (PASS) 小组研究中 N = 20,196 人的样本进​​行多级逻辑回归模型估计表明，平均有 18% 的失业者因健康状况不佳而请病假。然而，考虑到健康状况相当，男性、老年人和教育水平较低的人的概率会增加。这些发现至关重要，因为它们揭示了病假在获得残疾养老金的机会有限的情况下的双重作用：作为生病、失业人员的保护措施，以及通过排除那些在融入劳动力市场方面面临非医疗障碍的人来实现失业的医疗化。