Employmentweb_low

employment relations and health inequalities: a conceptual and empirical overvieW
Occupational injuries
Occupational injuries are among the most visible negative effects of poor
employment and working conditions. according to the best available
worldwide estimates, the number of non-fatal occupational injuries that
cause at least three days' absence from work is 264 million per year,
more than 700,000 injured workers per day (Hämäläinen, Takala, &
leena, 2006). It has been calculated that annually, the global number
of fatal injuries is approximately 350,000, meaning that every day, 970
workers die due to their working conditions. Currently, fatal and nonfatal
occupational injuries produce about 10.5 million disabilityadjusted
life years (Dalys): about 3.5 years of healthy life lost per
1,000 workers every year globally. This is responsible for 8.8 per cent
of the global burden of mortality (Concha-Barrientos, nelson,
Fingerhut, Driscoll, & leigh, 2005). This enormous burden of disease
is unequally distributed by social class, gender, ethnicity, age, and
migrant status (see Case studies 34 and 35).
Child operating sugar cane press (india).
Structural changes from agricultural and industrial to service
source: marc schenker (2000)
economies, with outsourcing of dangerous industries to poor
countries, together with stricter regulation of preventive measures in
companies, result in a decrease in occupational injuries in rich regions.
nevertheless, in the EU-15 it has been estimated that over 121,000 people die
each year due to an occupational injury or by a disease caused by working
conditions (IlO, 2005). Conversely, while they are decreasing in wealthy
countries, work-related injuries are growing in middle- and low-income
countries. This picture is particularly worrisome (see Case study 36). Based
on occupational injury rates estimated by the World Bank region (Figure 12),
the risk of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury in China and India is about
two and a half times higher than in the Established Market Economies' region
(basically Europe and north america). This difference is five times higher in
the case of africa south of the Sahara economic region. rich countries have
the lowest rates. Fatal rates in Sweden and the United Kingdom are 1.9 and
0.8 per 100,000 workers, respectively, while in Mozambique or Kenya the
fatality rates are 21.6 per 100.000 workers, similar to that in Bolivia, where the
fatality rate is 21.9. These inequalities in occupational health are even more
evident when we compare occupational injuries between two pairs of
neighbouring countries located in sensitive areas, where economic and social
differences are huge, Mexico and the USa, and Spain and Morocco.
Occupational injury rates in Mexico (fatal 15.9 and non-fatal 121.3) are roughly
three times higher than in the USa (fatal 5.2 and non-fatal 39.6). Even more
dramatic differences can be seen between Spain (8.9 and 68.03) and Morocco
(47.8 and 364.9), where they are approximately five times higher. These
differences may in fact be higher, because underestimation bias is probably
more significant in poor countries.
187