Are elderly workers more likely to die in occupational accidents? Evidence from both industry-aggregated data and administrative individual-level data in Japan

As a result of recent government policies, Japanese firms have a growing number of elderly workers. However, little attention has been given to the various costs of an aging workforce, one of which is an increase in occupational accidents. Based on the industry-aggregated data and publicly available administrative individual-level data from the late 2000s, during which many policies aimed at promoting elderly employment have been implemented, this study investigates whether the probability of having a work-related accident rises with a worker's age and whether injury (or illness) due to an accident is more likely to be fatal when the worker is older. We found a positive and statistically significant impact of a worker's age on the probability of having a work related accident, after controlling for factors such as industry and firm size. We also found that occupational accidents are more likely to cause death to sufferers in their 60 s or later. However, the impact of age on work related accidents has remained almost unchanged throughout the period of our analysis.