WOMEN civil servants took 50 per cent more sick leave than their male counterparts last year.
On average, women were off sick for 12 days during 2013/2014, compared to eight days taken by men.
The main reason was "because they were much more likely than males to have a mental health related absence", according to a new report into sickness in the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS).
An average of 10.1 days per member of staff was lost last year to sickness, down from 10.6 days the previous year. However, the latest figure was still short of a target of nine days.
A total of 262,230 days were lost, equating to £30 million in lost production.
Absence varied across government departments from an average of eight days in Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti), to 11.6 in the Department of Justice.
The biggest contribution to the justice department's figure was by prison staff who were off for an average of more than 15 days last year.
This was down from 16.1 days in 2012/2013.
Sick leave also dropped in the Departments for Agriculture and Rural Development, Enterprise and Learning, Finance and Personnel, Social Development, the Public Prosecution Service, Deti, and Justice.
Staff in post for under two years - around half of whom were on probation - had less than half the level of sickness absence of those employed for longer.
The report said as in previous years, the main reason for absence was anxiety/stress/ depression/other psychiatric illnesses, accounting for nearly a third of working days lost.
The majority of these were split fairly evenly between work and non-work related stress.
This was followed by gastrointestinal problems, which accounted for a fifth of all sick leave, closely followed by colds and flus.
While more than half of staff had no sick days, more than one in 10 were off sick for an average of around three months.
The report stated that "continuing high frequency of long-term absences, which accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total working days lost, remains a major barrier to the achievement of absence targets".