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97% employees who die at work are men (2009-2014 figures)

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Two men a week die in workplace deaths in the UK according to official figures for the five year period from 2009-2014.

The leading cause of casualties was falls from height, which was most prevalent in the construction industry. These accounted for three out of every ten deaths amongst workers in the UK between in the past year. In total, 510 of the 528 people who died at work were male, accounting for nearly 97% of fatalities according to figures from the HSE

his is the table of numbers we used when working out the averages: (the table is called RIDAGEGEN on the HSE statistics site if you want to see the entire thing. This is just a section we took from it).

Bryan Richards of health and safety consultancy Arinite said:

Greater risk

“Although there has been an on-going debate for more equality in  women doing `men’s’ work, it does not work out in practice. Although `top percentile’ women are fitter and more physically capable than many men, it s about averages here and the average woman cannot do the physically demanding work that an average man can do, and these tend to be the  jobs where there us a greater risk of fatal injury e.g. construction, utility industries etc.”

“As for major and minor injuries, all people are vulnerable to falling when moving around a workplace. The actual risk of falling will vary depending on whether there are trip and fall hazards permanently or temporarily in the workplace. It would be difficult to eliminate this most common cause of injury at work, but injuries can be avoided/reduced by controlling the common factors that may cause trips and falls.

“These include: the working environment (office, factory etc), the type of floor surface (slippery, non-slip), contamination (spillages), obstacles (trailing cables, boxes etc.), footwear (non-slip, high heels etc.),  people! (mobility disability, distracted when walking etc).”

Protective measures 

“The hazard of falling needs to be managed proportionate to the risk. From using a step ladder correctly  to using a tower crane or working on a high rise building. Protective measures include training and physical protection.”

A former construction worker, Daniel Long, who says he left the industry due to safety concerns said:

“It would be quite difficult for women trying to enter the construction industry – it’s a male dominated area and most of the builders I know wouldn’t happily want to let a woman carry heavy, concrete blocks in front of them. They’d struggle getting respect from fellow builders.”

“I worked in construction for two years before leaving, mostly in narrow corridors without supervision. It was OK being left to get on with things but more training at the beginning is important. I had no idea about protective footwear and that kind of thing and just got the facts from other guys on site.”

—Infographic: Arinite Health & Safety 

 

  • Darren Ball

    I work in construction and the industry has two speeds: the commercial scale in which H&S is extremely important and the domestic-scale in which it’s appalling.

    On a professional site everybody wears safety boots, hard hats, gloves, hivis vests, and googles – even if you’re just surveying. There’s a range of soaps to use before, during and after work. There’s compulsory site inductions, etc.

    On domestic sites we see clients chasing the cheapest quotes which in turn puts pressure on small builders to cut corners on scaffolding etc.

    I live in Guardian-reading Stoke Newington, London. Recently about a dozen of my left-leaning, liberal-minded neighbours had their three storey houses repainted by the same decorator. He was cheap because he didn’t use scaffolding. Half the time he was hanging out of windows or standing on window ledges. It made me wonder: where was their concern for the safety of this working class man?

    I suspect that if 97% of workplace fatalities were female as a result of the sort of work that women are more likely to do, then legislation would be brought and rigorously enforced to ensure that women were protected. And it would be socially unacceptable not to take H&S extremely seriously. My neighbours would not be blatantly putting a women in their employ in serious danger.

  • Nigel

    It always interests me the way things are presented. First of all think you are quite right that H&S Should be taken more seriously. I think you are also right to point out that the respect is earned by doing the job rather than by sex. In my experience there have been persistent campaigns to get more women into trades. I remember some joining apprenticeships when I left school (in 1975 think of that!!). All I can say is that this long period of such initiatives seems to have had little effect. In the 1990s Reich and Reich did a series of experiments in “blind applications”. They found there was a weak sex preference effect in the building trade they chose (i.e. there was a slight preference for males over females) but a very much stronger bias for females in both “female” occupations but also in Professions even if they were traditionally “male”. They were surprised, noted that there wasn’t a strong anti female bias in the building trade, that there was in female jobs for females and speculated that the professions they found the strong bias to female applicants reflected a drive to increase the “quota” of females as a sort of social good (a reverse discrimination). I mention this because it is one of the few such pieces of research to include “blue Collar” jobs (and I suspect this is because the Authors were American).
    Of course the other irritating thing as that many initiatives supposedly to increase the female representation in building trades and the like don’t mean actually in the dirty jobs but in graduate entry roles. Thus in a recent initiative the press release sounds as though its about more female brickies but the actual content is all about getting Project Manager and Board jobs (sort of cutting out the hard bits).
    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/championing-women-in-the-construction-industry
    And in the speech one can detect the class bias in the Solicitor /Minister
    “For many, a job in construction too often still conjures up an image of a man in a high-vis jacket on a building site, wearing his trousers slightly lower then he should be…”
    She then goes on about the opportunities for women. Never once suggesting an example of anyone in a “Wet” or “Dry” trade. But focussing on a” Project Manager” As with so much it ends with the distinct impression that its perfectly fine for ill clad men to take the risks so long as women are off having meetings etc. and popping into schools to be inspiring. As with the Guardianistas you refer to it seems feminism is all about the comfortable being rather more comfortable. And that comfort relies on the men (and indeed in many services the women) that they condescend to. I recall that one of the things often noted about the Soviet Union and China in the Cold war was that women could be seen doing road and other hard labour along side men. This was taken as sign of the barbarism of the commies. It would appear the feminists would still concur.