L’absentéisme hospitalier au Québec : aspects culturels et socio-démographiques

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
L’absentéisme hospitalier au Québec : aspects culturels et socio-démographiques
Abstract
The authors points out that research on sociodemographical and cultural determinants of work absenteeism has been plagued with empirically inconsistent results. It has been suggested that the failure to analyze the data beyond a simple linear bivariate approach, as well as insufficient levels of aggregation (eg: individual without organizational units) is possibly responsible for the inconsistencies. The authors' study was designed to demonstrate these deficiencies. Although their study is limited in scope, an attempt has been made to compare and contrast the different results that could be obtained when a linear, as opposed to interactive, approach is used. And further, it raises many questions concerning the adequacy of published research which attributes absenteeism to sociodemographical characteristics without delving into the real complexity of this phenomenon. Four hundred seven (407) subjects employed in six Quebec hospitals, representing a wide variety of occupations, participated in this study. Personal and sociodemographical characteristics were obtained from questionnaires administered in the course of another research project carried out by the authors. The results show a significant difference in absenteeism depending on the level and type of the analysis performed. For example, the authors found that the mean absence rate for "Francophone hospitals" was significantly higher than that of "Anglophone hospitals". Cultural reasons are advanced by the authors to explain these differences. At the individual level of analysis, several findings emerge. First, the authors shown that gender is an important determinant of absence behavior. Such finding is consistent with other published results, which point out that women have significantly higher rates of absence than men. Yet, when further analysis is undertaken, the concomitant effects of other related sociodemographic variables are more clearly revealed. For example, the authors found that married women are absent more often than single women while the opposite tendency is found for men. The combined effect of sex and marital status may point to an explanation of absenteeism in terms of "family social responsibility". The authors argue that this explanation differs from that which might be advanced based on the simple analysis of each of these variables treated independently. Further, they found that a bivariate analysis of absence by the level of education, shows an inverse relationship between these two variables. However, when the same analysis is repeated, adjusting for sex, it is found that women have systematically higher rates of absence in each category of education. Other relationships found for income, age and absenteeism are also discussed by the authors. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of a research strategy for the conduct of a sociodemographical and cultural study of absenteeism.
Publication
Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations
Volume
Vol. 38
Issue
no. 1
Pages
45-57
Date
1983
Language
fr
URL
Citation
Dolan, Shimon L., André Arsenault, Jean-Paul Lizotte, and Lucien Abenhaim. “L’absentéisme hospitalier au Québec : aspects culturels et socio-démographiques.” Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations Vol. 38, no. 1 (1983): 45–57. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ri/1983-v38-n1-ri2861/029326ar.pdf.
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