How close you live to the place you work and the number of days you take off work have now been linked in a new research study from VU University in the Netherlands.

According to the researchers if your company employs people who live close to work it could see a 16 per cent drop in absenteeism – though of course it’s not possible to screen workers in this way. The study, the first empirical analysis released which links the relationship between commuting and absenteeism, also found that workers who had to endure a lengthy commute were also less productive in the office. The researchers behind the study offered two explanations for why the distance of your commute affects how often you make it into the office.

The first is that workers with a lengthy commute not only gain in leisure time if they call in sick, but they also ditch the commute for that day. This theory is based on voluntary absenteeism – ie people calling in sick when they could really make it in to the office. The second theory is related to involuntary absenteeism and describes a decrease in workers’ health if they have a long commute, in particular an increase in stress levels.