Sickness, Disability and Work

Le fichier de la couverture est S: \Data\MKT\Stock\POD\812008131P1\9789264049680_cov.pdf Le fichier de l'intérieur est S: \Data\MKT\Stock\POD\812008131P1\9789264049680_txt.pdf Voici le blurb: Too many workers leave the labour market permanently owing to health problems, and yet too many people with reduced work capacity are denied the opportunity to work. This is a social and economic tragedy common to virtually all OECD countries, and an apparent paradox that needs explaining. Why is it that the average health status is improving, yet a persistently large number of people of working age leave the workforce to rely on long-term sickness and disability benefits? This third report in the OECD series Sickness, Disability and Work explores the possible factors behind this paradox. It looks specifically at the cases of Denmark, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands, and highlights the roles of institutions and policies. A range of reform recommendations is put forward to deal with specific challenges facing the four countries. Experiences in the four countries offer some lessons on the importance of financial incentives for the main actors: private and public institutions (including public employment services, social insurance institutions and municipalities), employers, and workers. Good incentives will help to achieve the necessary shift in mentality, from providing insurance to activation, to promote better cooperation across actors, and to foster reform and system implementation in line with policy intentions. This should improve outcomes. Despite a range of good-practice elements in this regard, in all four countries more can be done to avoid the flow onto benefits and to move benefit recipients back to employment. Many people with health problems or reduced work capacity can work, and want to do so. Helping those people is potentially a true "win-win" policy: it helps them avoid exclusion and have higher incomes, while raising the prospect of higher economic output in the long term. In the same series: Vol. 1: Norway, Poland and Switzerland (2006) Vol. 2: Australia, Luxembourg, Spain and the United Kingdom (2007) www.oecd.org/els/disability