Sick leave in the United Kingdom Post Office, 1850–1908

Abstract This paper uses a large individual‐record‐level dataset on sick leave to examine adult morbidity in the United Kingdom between 1850 and 1908. From 1859 onwards postal workers were eligible to receive a pension or gratuity when they retired or were forced to stop working due to ill health. Their pension application forms contain information on up to 10 years of sick leave taken prior to retirement by each retiree. These data have several advantages over previous sources of information on morbidity in this period. Sick leave was closely monitored by the Post Office's medical service, mitigating issues around the inflation of morbidity raised in the context of friendly society data; they cover the entirety of the United Kingdom; they include workers from the service sector as well as manufacturing occupations; and they include a greater proportion and number of women than previous sources. The paper discusses the nature of these data and the administrative systems that created them before examining the trends and modelling the determinants of sick leave. It concludes that postal workers became increasingly likely to take time off during this period but that the duration of sick leave remained stable. These changes were driven by changes to sick leave regulations; shifts in the composition of the workforce by age, occupation, gender, and location; and changes in the intensity of postal work.