| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study is to explore the long-term changes of occupational injury patterns and how injury incidence is associated with business cycle from macro perspective. In the fist stage, correspondence analysis was applied to chart longitudinal changes in occupational injury patterns (including severity, accident type, and source of injury) based on 92,577 cases reported by manufacturing firms in Taiwan between 1996 and 2012. Cluster analysis revealed three phases for injury severity and two for accident type and source of injury. The Kruskal–Wallis test revealed whether and which injury severity, accident type and source of injury had significant difference among different phases.
In the second stage, empirical evidences showed that economic fluctuation influence injury incidence positively and 1% change in business cycle indicator resulted in 02-0.3% change in injury incidence across various industries including mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail trade, and accommodation and food service activities in Taiwan. In addition, among the explanatory factors tested, only working hour and overtime were found to be significant, whereas indicators of labor composition and relation were not. Economic fluctuation accompanies with varying in workload and pace contributes to the increasing in injury incidence via fatigue and probability to miss operation.
Injury prevention and precautionary measures must be implemented in response to the influence of contextual factors, such as the change of industrial characteristics and business cycle.
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