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Accidents will happen: (de)regulation of health and safety legislation, workplace accidents and self employment

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  • Donna Brown
  • Jonathan Wadsworth

Abstract

In 2015, the UK government exempted "low-risk" self-employed workers from legislation on workplace safety. This reversed a move two decades earlier that incorporated the self-employed more fully into the same regulatory framework as employees. This paper examines whether workplace accidents among self-employed workers shifted after these two changes to safety regulations. A difference-in-differences estimation framework suggests that the extension of regulation in 1999 had little impact on relative accident rates. In contrast, after 2015, accident rates for high and low risk self-employed converged, driven primarily by a steep fall in accident rates among those still covered by legislation.

Suggested Citation

  • Donna Brown & Jonathan Wadsworth, 2022. "Accidents will happen: (de)regulation of health and safety legislation, workplace accidents and self employment," CEP Discussion Papers dp1855, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1855
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    non-fatal workplace accidents; self employed; de-regulation; health and safety;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J80 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - General
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

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