Census of Fatal Occupat 1 inj

Fewer Women Than

Men Die of Work-
Related Injuries,
Data Show

BY ANDREW KNESTAUT

Of the Nation’s employed workers, 46 percent are
women, yet they accounted for just 8 percent of the Nation’s
job-related fatalities in 1992-94. Women are less likely to
be killed at work because they hold far fewer jobs in the
most dangerous occupational groups. Nearly two-thirds of
work-related fatalities occur in occupations broadly classi-
fied under the headings farm workers, production and craft
workers, and machine operators and laborers, occupations
in which only about a tenth of employed women hold jobs.’

During 1992-94, more than 1,400 women lost their lives
due to work-related injuries. The number of women fatally
injured at work increased by 10 percent between 1992 and

Table 1. Job-related fatalities by year and sex, 1992-94

Number of fatalities
Year
Total Women Men
19,136 1,453 17,683
6,217 443, 5,774
6,331 489 5,842
6,588 521 6,067

Andrew Knestaut is an economist in the Office of Safety, Health, and
Working Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Telephone (202) 606-6175.

45 Compensation and Working Conditions June 1996

1993, and by 7 percent between 1993 and 1994. Among
men, the increase was markedly lower 1 and 4 percent, re-
spectively, although total fatalities among men far out dis-
tanced those of women. (See table 1.)

Table 2. Occupations with the most job-related fatalities among
‘women, and homicides and highway Incidents, 1992-94

Number of fatalities
Occupation‘ Highway
Total Homicides | incidents
Total .. 1,453 ‘556 71
Supervisors and proprie-
tors, sales occupations .. 91 66 12
Cashiers... 7 79 71 .
Truckdrivers . 61 : 50
Managers, food serving
and lodging
establishments ... 51 40 4
Registered nurses 42 3 19
Secretaries ... - a 2 7
Nursing aides, orderlies,
35 8 13
29 2 .
28 . -
23 20 -

1 Based on the Census Bureau's 1990 occupation classification system.

? Nonhighway transportation incidents, such as tractor rollovers, were the
leading fatal events for farm workers (9 fatalities).

NOTE: Dashes indicate no data reported or data that do not meet publica-
tion standards.



Table 3. Job-related fatalities and homicides by selected
characteristics, 1992-94

Fatalities Number of
Characteristic i

Number | Percent | homicides

1,453 100 556

1,256 86 461

197 14 s

13 87

52 7

35 162

79 416

12 78

4 4

Other or unknown... 64 4 21

Hispanic origin
cy 6 4

* There were 3 work-related fatalities for which the age of the victim

‘was not reported.
2 Persons identified as Hispanic may be of any race.
NOTE: Percentages may not add to totals because of rounding.

Occupations with the highest fatalities

Three occupations proved most dangerous for women—
sales supervisors and proprietors, cashiers, and truckdrivers.
In these occupations the fatalities among women were most
often homicides or highway traffic incidents. Table 2 shows
the 10 most dangerous jobs for women.

Homicide was the leading fatal event for women at work,
claiming the lives of 556 women workers, or 38 percent of
those fatally injured on the job in 1992-94. In contrast,
only 15 percent of men’s fatal workplace injuries were the
result of homicide.

Forty-seven percent of the murdered women held sales
or food preparation and service jobs, such as cashiers and
waitresse. Three-fourths of murdered women were shot.
Seventeen percent of the women’s alleged attackers were
current or former husbands and boyfriends; for black women
that figure was 28 percent.

Women of color were particularly affected by workplace
violence. About two-thirds of the fatally injured Asian
women workers and more than half of the Hispanic women
workers were homicide victims. Homicide also accounted
for just under half of the work fatalities of women who were
self-employed, under 25, or black. See table 3.

Highway traffic incidents claimed the lives of 371
women. Collisions were the primary fatal highway events,
accounting for 229 of the deaths. And, more than a third of
them occurred head-on or at intersections. Chart 1 shows
the leading fatal injury producing events for women.

Chart 1. Job-related fatalities among women by event or
exposure

‘Assauts, violent
‘acts

‘Traneportation
Wncidents | Ht

Fats

Contact with
objects

‘exposures

Assaults and violent acts are primarily homicides, but also include self-
inflicted injuries and assaults by animals.

27 ion incidents are primarily highway fatalities, but also in-
clude nonhighway, railway, water vehicle, and aircraft incidents and workers
struck by vehicles.

Fatality rates

In 1994, the fatality rate for women workers as a group
was | fatality per 100,000 employed, while the rate for men
workers was 9 fatalities per 100,000 employed. This means
that men as a group had a fatal work injury rate nine times
that of women in 1994. The difference was due largely to the
relatively few women working in such hazardous occupations
as fishers or timber cutters, which had rates of 131 and 130
fatalities per 100,000 employed, respectively, in 1994.

Chart 2. Women worker fatalities, Including homicides and
highway incidents, by time of incident, 1992-94

—

Homicides

Highway
incidents,

° 20 40 60
Percent

NOTE: A time of incident was not reported for 9 percent of total women
worker fatalities, 12 12 percent of homicides, and 3 percent of highway inci-
dents. These percentages are not reflected in the chart.

Compensation and Working Conditions June 1996 46



Table 4. Occupations with the highest fatality rates for
women,' 1994

Number | Employed? | Fatalities
Occupation® of (in 1 00,000
fatale
s_ | thousands) or
521 56,610 1
6 25 24
6 27 19
20 126 16
5 38 13
7 51 10
2 124 9
3 48 6
5 4 6
4 co) 6
Police and detectives,
public service .. 4 70 6

1 The occupations listed had minimum employ
1994, ‘The rates are experimental measures using
employment data.

2 Based on the Census Bureau’s 1990 occupation classification system.

> The employment figures are annual average estimates of emy
civilians 16 years of age and older, from the Current Population Survey
(CPS), 1994.

4 "The rate represents the number of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000
employed workers and was calculated as follows:

x 100,000, where

N= the number of work injury fatalities,
W-=the number of employed workers, and
100,000 is an absolute term which provides the basis for comparisons.

nt levels of 25,000 in
Population Survey

NOTE: Fatally injured workers under the age of 16 years were not in-
cluded in the ratecalculations to maintain consistency with Current Popula-
tion Survey employment data.

47 Compensation and Working Conditions June 1996

Not surprisingly, about half of women's workplace fatali-
ties occurred during typical work day hours from 8 a.m. to
4 p.m. Less expected, however, more women were mur-
dered during the day than during either the evening or early
morning hours. In contrast, male workers were more fre-
quently murdered during the evening hours. (See chart 2.)

The three jobs with the highest fatal work injury rates
for women in 1994 were taxicab drivers and chauffeurs,
construction laborers, each with a fatality rate of 6 per
100,000 employed, and truckdrivers with a rate of 20 per
100,000. (Fatality rates for men in these three occupa-
tions were 50, 34, and 28 fatalities per 100,000, respec-
tively, in 1994.) Table 4 shows the 10 jobs with the high-
est fatality rates for women workers.

For more information on these data or the Census of
Fatal Occupational Injuries, contact Andrew Knestaut, Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics, Room 3180, 2 Massachusetts Av-
enue, NE, Washington, DC 20212. Telephone: (202) 606-
6175; Internet: Knestaut_A @bls.gov

—ENDNOTE—

* Datain this article are from the Bureau's Census of Fatal Occupational
Injuries, 1992-94.