Statistics in Focus: Population and social conditions. The health and safety of men and women at work.

Abstract

Men are more likely than women to suffer accidents at work. In 1998, an average of just under 5,300 men in the EU per 100,000 men employed were involved in accidents either at work or related to the job which they were doing which led to them being away from work for 4 days or more. This compares with a figure of just under 1,900 women per 100,000 employed having at least 4 days off for a similar reason. Men were therefore, almost three times as likely to be involved in accidents at work than women, the ratio varying from almost 3>2 times in Greece and Ireland to under twice as likely in Sweden and just over twice as likely in the UK (Fig. 1 - it should be noted that no data by gender are available for the Netherlands). Considering incidences calculated per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) persons in employment and standardised for differences in the branches of activity in which men and women work, the EU ratio decreases but still remains higher than two (2.2)