Why chucking a sickie is something we should all be proud of

We have many things to be proud of in Australia. We punch well above our weight in areas like sport, science and the arts, and our natural environment is second to none in the world. But there’s another area where we lead on the global stage, and that’s how we use sick leave.

The ‘Great Australian Sickie’ is a time-honoured tradition that would be familiar to most Australians who work.

The day before said sickie you usually lightly foreshadow if you’re starting to feel a sore throat or headache coming on (either real or imagined). Then you wake up the following morning, roll over and fire off a short text, email or chat message to your manager that you’re not feeling well. That’s all you need to do before you doze back to sleep and attempt to recover on your new day off.

Full-time Australian workers are entitled to 10 sick days a year, or roughly one a month, if someone takes up the full quota. We love a sickie, too, especially when compared with other countries.

When Statista Consumer Insights surveyed several thousand people around the world a few months ago, Australia came out on top of all the countries they ranked, with 87 per cent of Australians saying they had taken some form of sick leave in the past 12 months, compared with 75 per cent of US and UK respondents and just 47 per cent of South Korean workers.

Some countries, like Germany, are trying to rein in their sick leave entitlements, with recent changes meaning German workers will now need to get a doctor’s certificate in person on the first day of their illness as part of sweeping productivity changes.

While many Australians take advantage of our accepted culture of sick leave, its benefits are not spread equally.

But when you zoom out, our propensity to call in sick more than other countries has a broad range of benefits for individuals, the community and the workplace. On a personal level, the ability to stay at home at the first signs of feeling unwell means shorter illnesses and more comfortable recoveries.

For the community, numerous studies have indicated that the presence of paid sick leave takes pressure off the healthcare system and means people are less likely to use the emergency department.

And the benefits for workplaces range from less spreading of diseases around colleagues to lower staff turnover, higher productivity and even a direct correlation between paid sick leave and fewer non-fatal occupational injuries in the workplace.

But while many Australians take advantage of our accepted culture of sick leave, its benefits are not spread equally, with large discrepancies depending on several factors. Recent research led by the University of Technology Sydney showed that the decision to take sick leave is heavily influenced by pay, job security and gender.

They found that casual and fixed-term Australian workers take an average of three fewer sick days each year than permanent employees.

The most consistent finding in their research was a distinct gender gap, with men taking 23 per cent fewer sick days than women. The authors theorised this might reflect different health needs, caring responsibilities and likeliness to seek medical care, as well as gendered expectations about ‘toughness’ to work through illnesses.

Taking a paid sick day when you are feeling unwell should be encouraged, normalised and incentivised across all genders, employment types and workers. Every time we ‘soldier on’ and push through when our bodies need rest we are sending the wrong message to everyone around us.

The more evenly we can all take advantage of the Great Australian Sickie, the healthier we’ll be as a country.

Tim Duggan is author of Work Backwards: The revolutionary method to work smarter and live better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com.

Get workplace news, advice and perspectives to help make your job work for you. Sign up for our weekly Thank God it’s Monday newsletter.