Why childcare workers work when ill: organizational position matter

ABSTRACT Working despite being ill is a challenging behaviour in the childcare sector. Whereas previous research on presenteeism often ignores whether a subject is a leader or an employee, we examine herein how organizational position affects presenteeism and the reasons for presenteeism among childcare workers. By analysing data from a two wave panel of 827 employees and leaders from the occupational group of childcare workers, we find that presenteeism is higher among employees than among leaders, however, not when we control for absenteeism. Employees and leaders have different reasons for going to work despite being ill. For instance, leaders have a higher probability of going to work ill because they want to avoid creating a backlog of work tasks. In contrast, employees have a higher probability of presenteeism out of consideration for colleagues. Overall, the findings provide insights into how presenteeism is affected by different organizational positions in the childcare sector.