Analyzing Factors Affecting Labor Market Status Recovery of Injured Workers: Focus on Differences by Pre-Injury Labor Market Status

Abstract

This study aims to analyze whether the patterns of status recovery among workers with work-related accidents and diseases differ according to their labor market status at the time of injury. Previous studies analyzing occupational return outcomes of injured workers have primarily focused on the type of return to work and characteristics of return jobs as key criteria. However, these criteria are not independent of workers' labor market status at the time of injury, making it difficult to properly assess the impact of industrial accidents and diseases. Using survival analysis methods, this study presents cumulative survival ratio graphs for status recovery across upper, middle, and lower labor market strata, and examines whether factors affecting the likelihood of status recovery differ by stratum. The analysis reveals that while upper-stratum injured workers have high rates of return to their original workplace, they experience long-term status decline when unable to return. In contrast, middle and lower-stratum injured workers, despite lower rates of return to original workplaces, achieve relatively smooth status recovery through reemployment. Factors influencing status recovery also differed: for upper-stratum injured workers, only returning to the original workplace had significant impact, while for middle and lower-stratum injured workers, both returning to the original workplace and the degree of work capacity reduction significantly affected status recovery. These results demonstrate that mechanisms hindering status recovery of injured workers in the segmented labor market are not uniform, suggesting that workers’ status recovery patterns vary by their labor market position. Based on these findings, this study proposes that return-to-work support policies should be differentiated according to workers' labor market status at the time of injury. Furthermore, it emphasizes that return-to-work support policies should be carefully designed to ensure workers' rights to work at the same labor market status as before the injury, with similar compensation and promotion opportunities.