Who is working while sick? Nonstandard employment and its association with absenteeism and presenteeism in South Korea

Objectives: This study sought to examine whether nonstandard employment is associated with presenteeism as well as absenteeism among full-time employees in South Korea. Methods: We analyzed a cross-sectional survey of 26,611 full-time employees from the third wave of the Korean Working Conditions Survey in 2011. Experience of absenteeism and presenteeism during the past 12 months was assessed through self-reports. Employment condition was classified into six categories based on two contract types (parent firm and subcontract) and three contract durations [permanent (≥1 year, no fixed term), long term (≥1 year, fixed term), and short term (<1 year, fixed term)]. Results: We found opposite trends between the association of nonstandard employment with absenteeism and presenteeism after adjusting for covariates. Compared to parent firm—permanent employment, which has been often regarded as a standard employment, absenteeism was not associated or negatively associated with all nonstandard employment conditions except parent firm—long term employment (OR 1.88; 95 % CI 1.57, 2.26). However, presenteeism was positively associated with parent firm—long term (OR 1.64; 95 % CI 1.42, 1.91), subcontract—long term (OR 1.61; 95 % CI 1.12, 2.32), and subcontract—short term (OR 1.26; 95 % CI 1.02, 1.56) employment. Conclusions: Our results found that most nonstandard employment may increase risk of presenteeism, but not absenteeism. These results suggest that previous findings about the protective effects of nonstandard employment on absenteeism may be explained by nonstandard workers being forced to work when sick.