The evaluation of sickness benefits in Iran

This paper deals with the evaluation of sickness benefit in Iran and it has used documentary and interview methods. The results show that despite the increase in the insured ratio, the ratio of issued documents for sick pay has declined from 1390(2011) to 1395 (2016). Concerning gender, the proportion of women who have used sick pay services is less than insured women (unlike men), but in the recent years, the ratio of women who used the benefits have been higher than the proportion of insured women. 40-45-year-old insured persons are the healthiest age group because the ratio of sick paid persons in this age group is lower than that of the insured. In addition, the paid amount is less than the poverty line and is around one-third of monthly urban household expenditure. According to the interviews, the most important challenge of this kind of services can be categorized into three categories that each of them include some sub-category as bellow: institutional and organizational challenges (prolongation the documents processing; users incognizant of regulation; registration errors; problems related to inquireing about the status of insured persons; insufficient branches and personnel who deal with these services); the problems arising from the employers’ performance (error in lists which are sent by employers; dismissal possibility of insured persons; the difficulty of getting a leave to track the file); the influence of these services in users life (economics difficulty related to delays in payments). Keywords: Sickness benefit, sufficiency, challenges related to the sickness benefits