Methodological Issues in Modeling Absence: A Comparison of Least Squares and Tobit Analyses

Predictions of absence made from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis were compared with those made from Tobit analysis (for truncated distributions) in a field survey of 193 male professionals in a large Canadian aerospace organization. In both OLS and Tobit analyses significant predictors of time lost included number of children, comparative absence, job involvement, and life-events stress. Age, comparative absence, job …