Effects of sickness absence on disability pension in two ethnolinguistic groups: register-based evidence from Finland

Abstract The Swedish-speaking ethnolinguistic minority in Finland has a health advantage over the Finnish-speaking majority terms of lower levels sickness allowance and disability pension receipt. We examine whether this differential consequences within social security system by analysing long-term risk for after With longitudinal population-register data covering period 1989–2010, we observed 110,390 individuals aged 16–40 years at baseline. Using discrete-time hazard models, estimated how first receipt relates to Finnish- groups. Receipt was found be an important predictor future receipt, but there were no systematic differences between two groups respect, results highly similar men women. These findings suggest that is non-discriminatory provides equal treatment both despite their overall differential.