ACCIDENTS AND FATAL ACCIDENTS - SOME PARADOXES

This study discusses the relationship between fatal accidents in the w orkplace and certain macro-structural features of production life in F inland during the period from 1977 to 1991. The fatality rate was stud ied in relation to variables describing economic activity and the freq uency of non-fatal accidents. Construction and manufacturing were stud ied separately According to the results the relationship between fatal and non-fatal accidents was reverse, in the case of construction, in a statistically significant way. In the construction industry the fata lity rate increased with declining number of cubic metres under constr uction. The results did not lend support to pro-cyclic approximations of the relation between business cycles and fatal accidents, but suppo rted the hypothesis of the different causation of different accident t ypes. On the other hand, in the case of non-fatal accidents, the socia l construction of accident statistics must also be taken into account. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.