Labour Rights, Occupational Safety, and Social Well-Being in Environment-Dependent Industries: A Socio-Legal Perspective

Abstract

Economy-dependent industries are still highly critical within any economic setting, but the risks associated with them make them risky for the workers involved. Occupational accidents in such industries pose significant socio-legal issues, since there is a close relationship between occupational safety and labour rights. This study examined fatal occupational accidents in environment-dependent industries from a socio-legal perspective, focusing on temporal trends, sectoral differences, and cross-country variation. A quantitative secondary-data design was adopted using harmonized European occupational safety data from 2008 to 2023. The final dataset included 4,367 country–sector–year observations across 31 countries and nine environment-dependent industries. Descriptive statistics, trend analysis, sectoral and country-level comparisons, and the Kruskal–Wallis test were used to analyze fatal accident patterns. Fatal occupational accidents declined from 1,023 in 2008 to 647 in 2023, representing a reduction of approximately 36.8%. The distribution of fatalities was highly uneven across sectors. Agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded the highest fatality burden, with a mean of 16.32 and a total of 7,933 fatalities. Significant differences were found across industries (H = 1601.51, p < 0.001). Country-level results showed that Italy, Germany, Spain, Romania, Poland, and Austria accounted for the highest cumulative fatality burdens. Fatality rates in occupation-related injuries have fallen with time, but hazards still persist within particular sectors that rely on certain environments. In order to promote the improvement of labour laws and occupational safety, sectoral-specific monitoring and prevention measures should be enforced.