Occupational disorders: Interactions between gender and migrant status among individuals engaged in paid work in Sweden

Background

Ensuring decent and safe working conditions, minimizing the risks of serious occupational injuries, and upholding nondiscriminatory rights to compensation for such disorders are central policy objectives for sustainable development. Workers that nevertheless suffer from occupational disorders should be entitled to compensation. This article examines if this de jure entitlement is enforced in a non-discriminatory way by comparing how workers’ gender and migrant status is correlated with their probability of receiving compensation.

Aim

The aim is to compare the approval rate of compensation for serious occupational disorders, considering workers’ gender and migration status (country of birth), while controlling for the type of diagnosis (and consequently, the type of injury).

Method

We analyzed all applications for compensation related to serious occupational disorders from 2010 to 2018, by applying Bayesian logistic regression on a data set of 20088 applicants and a total of 414 combinations of sex (2), region of birth (3), and diagnoses (69) (2 × 3 × 69 = 414).

Results

The probability of receiving compensation was significantly influenced by both gender and region of birth, even after accounting for the type of diagnosis. In general, men had a higher chance of receiving compensation than women from the same region. Additionally, individuals from Nordic countries had a greater likelihood of compensation compared to those from the EU, who, in turn, had a higher chance than individuals from the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. However, women from the EU did not fare better than women from the MENA region in terms of compensation.

Conclusions

Occupational disorders result in significant suffering and loss at individual, community, societal, and organizational levels, making them a global sustainability challenge. To address the issue of inequitable access to compensation, the Swedish compensation authority should thoroughly investigate the systematic advantage enjoyed by Nordic men.