Gender Differences in Workplace Fatalities

New statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2022, 5,486 American workers died after suffering injuries while working. This was up by 5.7 percent from 2021. A worker died every 96 minutes from a work-related injury in 2022 compared to every 101 minutes in 2021. Fatalities due to violence and other injuries by persons or animals increased 11.6 percent to 849 in 2022, compared to 761 in 2021. Homicides accounted for 61.7 percent of these fatalities, with 524 deaths, an 8.9 percent increase from 2021. Suicides increased 13.1 percent to 267 fatalities in 2022.

When we break down the figures by gender, we see that 445 women died from work-related injuries in 2022. This was down by three compared to 2021 after a huge increase of 15.2 percent from 2020. Women were 8.1 percent of all work-related fatalities due to injury in 2022, down from 8.8 percent in 2021. Construction workers and transportation workers were the most likely to suffer fatal work-related injuries. Women make up a small percentage of all workers in these occupations.

While women make up a low percentage of all work-related fatalities due to injuries, the number of deaths of women had been increasing until the pandemic struck. In 2016, 387 women died as a result of work-related injuries, the same number as in 2020. Since then womens’ fatalities at work have increased.

Women made up 8.1 percent of all workplace fatalities but accounted for 15.3 percent of homicides at work in 2022.