Economic Costs of Absenteeism, Presenteeism and Early Retirement Due to Ill Health: A Focus on South Africa

This report provides estimates of the economic cost due to productivity losses arising from absenteeism, presenteeism and early retirement due to ill health. For South Africa, these losses equate to a total of 6.7% of GDP in 2015 as shown in Table ES 1, increasing to 7.0% of GDP by 2030.

This puts South Africa below average for this group of nine countries, that includes some South East Asian, African and South American peers, as well as some upper income (and demographically mature) developed countries from other parts of the world. Figure ES1 shows that the estimated increase between 2015 and 2030 is considerably lower than many comparator countries.