Certificated Incapacity and Unemployment in Alcoholics

Seventy-three male alcoholics permitted information to be obtained from official sources about time recorded as lost from work in receipt of sickness or unemployment benefits and about their weekly state insurance contributions. The average yearly time loss was 121.7 working days per person, comprising an average yearly loss through sickness of 86.1 and through unemployment of 35.6 working days respectively. By contrast the recorded national sickness loss for men in a comparable twelve months period averaged 15.9 working days per person. Thirteen alcoholics showed over five years, prolonged deficiency in work attendance. State benefits to the subjects, over twelve months during the early 1970s, totalled £18,434.80. Diagnoses on their medical certificates underestimated incapacity from alcoholism.