Workers' Safety in Brazil

: First, our counterpart in Brazil, which oversees all labor safety inspections at a national level for all firms, elaborated a new strategy to decrease the accident rate of the firms under their supervision. A group of 1,108 firms in the same type of industrial sector was randomly separated into 3 different groups. The first would receive an inspection visit to check safety measures. The second, 6 months before the visit, would be provided with a training session, and then be visited by a safety inspector. Finally, there is a third control group that does not receive any of the treatments (nor visit or training). For the first 6 months of the intervention, we can compare the outcome of firms in the control group, those who received a visit and those who so far have only experience a training. In the last 6 months of the intervention, we can then compare firms who are in the control, those who recently received a visit and those who were trained and are now receiving a visit. This allows us to (at least in the short-term) to compare the control to visits and training on their own and then in the longer term to compare visits and their combination with training. This process is already being implemented by the Labor Ministry of Brazil as part of their administrative improvements and will be finished by December 2022.

2021-12-01

2022-11-30

Report of accidents, type of accidents, accidents severity, wages of workers

perception of safety, accidents experienced

These will only be measured if we obtain funding for surveys

Randomization was performed by the research team in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor. A list of firms involved in a similar sector in 3 states of Brazil was provided and each was assigned to one of the three alternatives. Once the interventions on each firm are finished (by December 2022), we will compare outcomes in firms that were in each of the treatment arms as time evolves. We have an agreement with the Ministry of Labor to have access to the safety outcomes of workers in each firm and the wages and employment at each firm. Depending on funding, we will also be able to measure how workers perceive the labor safety of their firms after the intervention and self-reported measures of accidents through a survey. The effect of the interventions on labor accidents and firm wages will be measured running a linear regression of this outcomes into the assignment of the firm to each treatment group. This will be controlled by firm characteristics that existed before the intervention. In particular, the industrial sector of the firm, its geographical zone, and the number of workers, given that these variables are relevant to influence on accidents and they were used for the determination of the treatment received by each firm. We will compare the control group to each treatment to see if each intervention is effective at improving labor safety. We can also compare the short-term impact of training only with visits and the longer-term impact of training and visits to only visits to compare the relative efficiency of each of the interventions has a greater impact on workers’ safety and wages.

Not available

Randomization done in office by a computer

Firm. The treatment is not clustered when we use firm-level outcomes like the number of reported accident at the firm level. If we obtain funding and can perform a survey to workers, for these outcomes, treatment will be clustered (all workers of a given firm will face the same treatment).

No

1,108 firms for analysis using administrative data. We are currently seeking sources of funding for surveys which would be done to only around 875 of those firms

We would survey 3 workers per firm if we obtain funding.

373 firms in the control, 368 to visit only treatment, 367 to training and visit treatment.