Most truck drivers experience economic pressure in the form of low pay rates, no pay for non-driving work time, and long work hours. Unpaid working time, leading to low effective pay rates, encourages drivers to work excessive hours to pursue target earnings, which leads to fatigue and working time violations, and ultimately raises crash rates. This paper explores the complex relationship between regulatory violations, pay incentives, and crashes, to determine the effects of economic forces on carrier safety. We use data from 13,904 intrastate trucking companies in the United States, as well as median hourly truck driver wages from data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We find that controlling for observed regulatory violations (hours of service, unsafe driving, and substance abuse), at the mean, 1% higher driver wages are associated with 1.04% fewer crashes. Stated differently, a 10% wage increase would be 5 times as effective as a 10% reduction in ‘unsafe driving’ or 2.5 times as effective as a 10% reduction in ‘driver fitness’ violations. This unit elasticity between driver pay and crashes suggests that higher compensation will bring direct and commensurate worker and public safety benefits. Every unit in higher pay, at the mean, will lead to a corresponding unit improvement in safety. Our findings suggest that the most effective way for regulators to pursue their mission to reduce crashes, fatal or otherwise, would be to collect firm-level data on truck driver compensation and allow their methodology to follow sound science.

Australia’s education system is one of the most developed globally and also one of the most privatised. Despite the substantial expenditure by state governments and the federal government, it is profoundly unequal with respect to access, funding, resources, and results from early childhood education to university. The inequality has class and spatial features, and Indigenous Australians are at the bottom of the rung. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural, social, and economic capital, I show that the education system, whilst certainly allowing for some mobility, facilitates the reproduction of the existing class structure. Children from low-income households are more likely to not attend childcare, to attend a school that lacks resources and where going on to university is viewed as exceptional rather than the rule. In contrast, the economic capital of wealthier households allows them to access childcare and elite private schools. The cultural and social capital of these schools reproduces a born to rule ethos, and progression to an elite university is an assumed path.

This special Themed Collection of The Economic and Labour Relations Review examines the ‘Economics of Occupational Health and Safety’ (OHS). The economics of OHS looks at how economic structures and incentives, including labour markets and production processes, influence the health and wellbeing of workers and the communities where they live. It is a large and diverse subject that has been viewed from multiple different lenses. This thematic issue can only touch on some of these but will remind readers how economic incentives and industrial competitive pressures affect OHS. This editorial will take the form of an article which explores some of these intersections and places them in a wider context. To do this, the economics of OHS will not only be examined in terms of economic welfare and microeconomics at the industry and workplace level, but also from an historical perspective, as well as the intersection of these levels, thus providing a useful framework to shape research and discussion.

There is evidence that seaweed production can involve a variety of physical risks, but there has been little study of how wider contextual factors – such as enterprise size, economic and business relations, and forms of employment arrangements – may affect workers’ safety. This study explores the impact of such aspects on workers’ experiences of occupational safety and health (OSH) risks and their management in the developing seaweed industry, in North West Europe. Based on qualitative findings from a survey and discussions with owners/managers, workers and stakeholders in the industry, the study identified a number of issues relating to OSH in seaweed production. These include the predominance of micro small enterprises, the presence of significant risks to health and safety and limitations in the capacity of owners/managers to address them, as well as structural and economic factors in the sector that promote precarious work, and the low visibility and inaccessibility of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) to both public and private regulations. The paper discusses experiences of these issues in the emergent industry and relates them to the wider literature about work health and safety in micro and small firms and precarious and non-standard forms of work, typically found in agriculture and food production. Findings point to the need for better orchestration of public and private regulatory influences and further research to determine if strategies that are seen as successful in other sectors could be transferred to the emergent European seaweed industry.

The regulation of road transport supply chains has recently become a subject of international concern. A significant body of research shows that ensuring minimum rates of pay for truck drivers is important, not only to workers’ health and safety but also to achieving improved road safety outcomes and other policy objectives related to the viability of the road transport industry. For this study, we used an empirical analysis to quantitatively demonstrate the impact of South Korea’s Safe Rates System on factors of the work environment and driver behaviours that affect road safety. Specifically, we looked at the impact of the system on market structure, truck drivers’ monthly net income, average working time, time spent on maintenance, and the frequency of overloading, speeding, and drowsiness while driving. Our results suggest that increased rates of pay for owner truck drivers resulting from the implementation of the Safe Rates System led to a reduction in the average number of contracting steps between client companies who ship goods and the truck drivers who transport them, improvement in the level of market transparency, increased monthly income, decrease in total time worked, decrease in the frequency of overloading, speeding, and drowsiness while driving, and increase in time spent on vehicle maintenance. The level of compliance with the system by clients and transport companies also had an overall positive impact on the industry structure. By empirically demonstrating the system’s impact, our results provide statistical evidence useful to the debate on reintroduction of the Safe Rates System in Korea.

In this paper, we introduce a unique dataset derived from a survey conducted among 450 Syrian refugee workers and the owners/managers of the firms in which they are employed in Istanbul, Turkey. We utilise this data to investigate the connection between the wage-productivity gap and perceived economic and social discrimination. The findings of the study indicate that individuals facing a wider wage-productivity gap tend to report higher levels of economic and social discrimination. These results remain consistent even after incorporating various variables at both the worker and firm levels into the analysis. These findings imply potential policy recommendations that policymakers should take into account.

The need to maintain transport during a pandemic places transport workers at higher risk of infection and can have other effects on health and well-being. The aim of this study was to understand the current state of research on the impact of respiratory diseases on transport workers and to identify any existing evidence-based recommendations that can help mitigate the risks associated with these diseases in the transport industry. A scoping review was undertaken as per PRISMA guidelines. A search was conducted in English-language databases for peer-reviewed research articles. We reviewed research articles published over 20 years (2002–2022). We found 12540 articles, of which 39 deemed relevant, were analysed. The review highlighted the high risk of transport workers’ exposure to respiratory diseases during pandemics, exacerbated by structural inequalities including the significant number holding precarious/non-standard jobs. Increased financial strains led to poorer mental health outcomes and risks of detrimental behaviours for health. Economic measures implemented by governments were found to be insufficient in addressing these issues. The review found that transport is a significant transmission point for pandemics of respiratory diseases, and it suggests some remedies to best meet these challenges.

Compared to the global average, the exit rate of old-aged Iranian labourers is significantly higher than that of middle-aged, raising the hypothesis that social security generosity pulls older workers into early retirement. We used a unique individual dataset of Iran’s Social Security Organization (ISSO), including 267, 000 newly retired in 2016 and 2018, to assess the impact of ISSO’s pension policies on employees’ retirement age. In a counterfactual evaluation design, this study first estimated the implicit tax on work continuation and then applied the Heckman two-stage selection model. The findings show that ISSO’s retirement rules determining the age of exit and benefit eligibilities significantly increase the retirement probability and simultaneously decline the retirement age. Moreover, the implicit tax on work continuation, which reflects ISSO’s benefit formula, has a significant positive effect on retirement probability. The replacement rate also has a significant negative impact on retirement age. The retirement probability in hazardous jobs is higher than in normal ones, while exemptions significantly fall the outflow age of hazardous job holders. To maintain the scheme’s sustainability, reforms have to target an increase in the statutory retirement age, a reduction in the accrual rate, the calculation of reference salary for more extended periods, and the decline of the exemption coefficient for hazardous jobs.

On 1 January 2016, China further relaxed its family planning policy and adopted the universal two-child policy, which allows any Chinese couple to have two children to address the country’s increasingly severe ageing problems and low fertility. With this shift comes a direct and profound impact on society, especially women; this paper evaluates the effect of the universal two-child policy on the gender wage gap and its mechanism. Several major conclusions emerge from this analysis. The policy significantly expands the urban gender wage gap by 12.86% in the low-policy-fertility-rate (PFR) provinces versus high-PFR provinces. Evidently, it increases the gap among younger or lower-educated people. Moreover, the severity of gender discrimination in the labour market after the implementation of the universal two-child policy is rising, and deserves further attention.

Extant research often assumes that the letter of labour codes is an adequate proxy for effective regulation. This paper empirically shows that such an assumption makes little sense for Senegal. We collect new objective measures of private and public labour enforcement, including workers’ awareness of their rights, access to the judiciary, penalties, and labour inspection resources and activities. We document that Senegal, as well as other countries in Francophone West Africa, is characterised by a combination of protective/stringent in-form labour codes and little enforcement efforts. Furthermore, we show that labour inspections target large and registered firms, while labour violations are more prevalent in small and unregistered firms, implying that the problem is substantially more complex than a lack of public inspection funding. We speculate it is mostly about the lack of effective representation of vulnerable workers in the policymaking process.

Outlining the economic significance of the role of global supply chains (GSCs) in the organisation of the global economy, this paper initially presents some indications of health and safety outcomes in low- and middle-income counties (LMICs) where GSCs source much of the production destined for use in advanced economies. It goes on to discuss the operational dynamics of these chains and the corporate priorities that they reflect, which, it argues, do little to improve the poor work health and safety (WHS) outcomes in LMICs. It then examines evidence for the effectiveness of various private and public regulatory strategies that are claimed to bring about improved health and safety practices and outcomes among GSC suppliers in these countries. The paper critically evaluates this evidence and argues that, while there may be some examples of effective strategies and regulatory practices in particular contexts, their overall influence remains limited. It identifies and discusses the principal reasons for these limitations and concludes that the global regulation of conditions of labour – including WHS – at the end of GSCs falls well short of universal best practice and is, more generally, insufficient to counter the economic forces working against the maintenance of adequate standards of worker protection.

We study the dynamics of the profit rate of United States (US) non-financial resident firms between 1945 and 2020. The 1970s entailed the abandonment of industrial policy and the liberalisation and globalisation of markets. This left the US-resident productive sector at the mercy of an unstoppable growth of imports. These imports helped to contain inflation but cornered the US domestic market, which negatively affected the profit rate of non-financial resident firms. The increasing foreign competition forced US-resident firms to invest and increase their productive capacity. Such increasing productive capacity demanded higher market shares; however, US-resident firms continued to lose domestic and foreign markets. This explains the fall in the degree of productive capacity utilisation, capital productivity, and ultimately, the rate of profit since the 1980s.

This paper investigates how interest groups in France and Germany communicate information about Industry 4.0 technologies and approaches. Specifically, this explanatory study employs cutting-edge big-data-type tools and machine-based automatic text processing to delve into the topics, arguments, and postulates related to Industry 4.0 strategies by trade unions and employers’ organisations. The goal is to determine which of these factors have been pivotal in shaping social dialogue in France and Germany. The findings reveal that social partners in both countries are involved in similar digitalisation-related initiatives and express predominantly favourable viewpoints regarding Industry 4.0 technologies. Key themes in the dialogues of both France and Germany centre around workers’ rights, working conditions, and skills training.

In recent decades, there has been a global growth of the use of contract labour in the mining industry, primarily driven by cost/flexibility considerations. At the same time, contracting has been associated with poorer occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes across a range of industries. Drawing on published research, theses, and government reports, this paper critically reviews the available evidence on the OHS effects of contract labour in mining and the likely implications of further growth in this trend. This evidence confirms that the use of contract labour is associated with worse OHS outcomes, and that the Ten Pathways and Pressure, Disorganisation, and Regulatory failure (PDR) models are both valuable in explaining this. The latter point is confirmed by a more detailed examination of four serious mine incidents in NSW and Queensland. The paper identifies some gaps and areas for further research as well as the actions that mining companies, regulators, and unions could take to improve contractor safety. Notwithstanding the latter, the paper argues that the most effective way of improving contractor safety in mines is reducing the use of contractors overall and concentrating their activities in areas such as major shutdowns/repairs, where contractors have specialised expertise to undertake non-routine tasks. Despite oft-repeated phrases such as zero-harm and management systems, the corporate shift to using contractors is primarily driven by cost-cutting and highlights how OHS is compromised by such priorities.

This study utilises panel data of 46 countries from 2005 to 2019 to examine the impact of digital service trade (DST) on inclusive growth. Inclusive growth is a growth model that promotes economic growth and development, while also building social equity and inclusiveness and balancing environmental sustainability. The findings indicate that a nation’s DST development significantly fosters domestic economic growth and development, specifically through its employment enhancement effect. DST substantially promotes social equity and inclusiveness, mainly through the inclusive innovation effect. However, DST is also found to increase carbon emissions, impeding environmentally sustainable growth, specifically via the energy demand effect. Hence, DST exerts diverse impacts on different facets of inclusiveness. The study also reveals heterogeneity in the effects of DST on the three aspects of inclusive growth related to trade’s import–export dynamics, income levels, and DST barrier intensities. This paper contributes to and refines the body of research on the relationship between DST and inclusive growth. It offers policy suggestions for crafting more open and mutually beneficial DST policies to foster social equity and inclusive global trade.

This study examines the influence of bullying at work on self-rated anxiety (SRA) across 19 European countries through the European Working Conditions Survey (2015 and 2021). Descriptive analysis highlights a significantly higher prevalence of bullying among women compared to men. The econometric analysis uncovers that the detrimental impact of bullying is particularly pronounced in environments characterised by higher gender inequality. Gender differences are more prominent in countries where women face lower economic participation and opportunities. However, the frequency of reported bullying is higher in the group of countries where conditions for women are more equal. The apparent lack of awareness regarding these abusive behaviours would feasibly result in a lack of specific legislation and consequently generate a greater impact on SRA, even though the issue seems less prominent.

The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently incorporated driver pay into its guidelines on the promotion of safe and decent work in road transport. ILO guideline 73 states that ‘the remuneration of … CMV [commercial motor vehicle] drivers should be sustainable and take into consideration the attractiveness and sustainability of the industry’. In the spirit of this, we explore the relationship between truck drivers’ relative income and intrastate motor carrier safety performance. We utilise the United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage data for heavy and tractor-trailer truck driver median annual incomes and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates of median household incomes to construct county level relative income ratios for truck drivers. This information is merged with public safety data to analyse the relationship between truck drivers’ relative pay and motor carrier safety performance. We find that, all else constant, carriers located in counties where driver earnings are relatively high tend to experience fewer crashes. This provides evidence that safety performance is better when driver pay is more attractive in the truck driver labour market and, consequently, validates the ILO’s assertion under guideline 73.