[Developmental trends in work absenteeism of adolescents]

An extreme negative development in the frequency of adolescent's exemptions from work during 1967-1977 is opposed by a positive development in the following period. Thus, in 1987 adolescents reached the lowest recorded level in respect to illness-caused absentee rates, related to the 1967 level. Therefore, decreases of sickness figures almost exclusively resulted from changes in the younger age groups, especially in adolescents. In the other age groups work absenteeism due to sickness not only remained at the high 1976 level, the year with the highest sickness figure in the GDR, but continuously exceeded it. The results are critically discussed.