The Effectiveness of Safety Education on Workforce Risks: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

This paper investigates how effective safety education reduces workforce risks by using an establishment-level dataset in South Korea. We focus on identification and estimation of causal effects. Since provision of safety education depends on establishment’s decision, the main variable of interest is endogenous. We adopt a partial identification approach to identifying and estimating the causal effects. The empirical results indicate that we cannot rule out the possibility that safety education may not be effective in most cases. We then discuss potential reasons that safety education would not help reduce workforce risks. Our findings are expected to be helpful to develop an effective policy to reduce workforce risks and improve work environments.