Income inequalities
Living in a low-income country means workers are more than twice as likely to suffer serious workplace harm, new research has revealed. Informal work in dangerous sectors such as mining and agriculture is often more common in poorer nations, which can also lack the safety infrastructure and legal protections of more affluent countries.
The report, Danger on the job: How global inequality shapes workplace harm, which was produced by RoSPA with funding from Lloyd’s Register Foundation, found around 395 million people every year experience work-related injuries. In the Western Pacific region, one in three workers have either experienced harm at work themselves in the past two years or know someone who has. In Europe and the Americas, the figure is one in five.
RoSPA CEO Becky Hickman said: “Every worker, regardless of where they live, deserves the right to return home safe and healthy at the end of the day. These findings demonstrate that workplace safety is not simply a matter of individual behaviour or personal circumstances. Strong national systems, effective regulation and investment in occupational safety and health are critical in reducing harm and protecting workers.”
Nancy Hey OBE, Director of Evidence and Insight, Lloyd’s Register Foundation Global Safety Evidence Centre, said: “The finding that it is national wealth – rather than any individual circumstances or behaviours – that currently presents the hardest ceiling to improved workplace safety, is a compelling and important one.
“In lower income countries, demographic factors that might otherwise be protective hold little sway. This reinforces the importance of fundamental systemic, structural and regulatory improvements, as well as established safety leadership and governance, in reducing the global burden of workplace harm.”
