There is a clear north-south divide in Bavaria when it comes to sick leave: While employees in the district of Kronach are most often on sick leave at 22.1 days, people in Munich are the least likely to stay home with a yellow note at 11.4 days. This emerges from the health report 2021 of the Barmer health insurance company, which is available to the German Press Agency.
“Once again, one can summarize that Bavarians not only have less sick leave than the national average, but also shorter periods of time,” explained Barmer state manager Claudia Wöhler. “And in the regions we actually see a north-south divide.” In addition, women are sick more often than men. “But all in all, we have reduced sick leave, albeit a further increase in mental illness in the second year of the pandemic, 2021.”
On average, employees in Bavaria were on sick leave for 15.8 days last year, compared to 16.3 days in the previous year. It’s the lowest level in at least five years. The nationwide average is 17.5 days. According to the report, the top ten with the most days of incapacity for work are exclusively in Upper and Lower Franconian districts, with one exception. Behind the district of Kronach are the districts of Kulmbach and Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in Middle Franconia. In contrast, eight of the ten cities and districts with the lowest values are in Upper Bavaria, plus Regensburg in the Upper Palatinate and Lindau in Swabia. The absolute leaders are the city of Munich and the districts of Starnberg and Landsberg am Lech.
With a view to the four most common diagnosis categories, people in Hof were most often on sick leave because of mental problems – the value was around 50 percent above the national average. Most respiratory diseases were in Bamberg, the people in Kulmbach and the district of Kronach had the most “back” or other musculoskeletal diseases. Barmer registered the most injuries and poisonings in Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen.
The reasons for the regional differences cannot be derived from the data. For its report, the fund evaluated the data of around 234,000 insured persons in employment in Bavaria and extrapolated these representative results to Bavaria. According to this, in 2021 there were around 8.5 million days of absence due to sick leave in Bavaria.