Health and safety attitude amongst construction site workers : age as a contributing factor

Abstract

The construction industry is an evolving industry, with mechanical innovations replacing manual work in certain circumstances. Despite this, such industry is still considered as one of the most high risk work environments, confirmed also by official statistical information. Given the numerous health and safety issues characterizing the construction industry, coupled with the fact that the age of construction site workers is relatively varied, the main aim of this study is to assess vis-a-vis a questionnaire study whether a relationship exists between the attitude of construction workers towards health and safety and their respective ages. Secondary importance is given to another research area, whereby through the same questionnaire study, workers' fears and concerns were assessed and compared to the workers' health and safety attitude. The general findings show that a relatively clear relationship does exist between the attitude towards health and safety at work of construction site workers and their age, particularly those workers who are aged 55 years and over exhibit a far more careless attitude compared to the other age cohorts. On the other hand, no con-elation is found between the fears and concerns expressed by the chosen sample of workers and their corresponding health and safety attitude. Results show that there is a mismanagement of training on some of the local construction sites, whereby not all workers are receiving training related to health and safety at work equally and uniformly. By giving to 'equality between age groups' the importance it merits, employers might achieve successful results in reducing accidents at the place of work. The author declares that the material presented and printed in this dissertation is authentic, aimed to fulfill the purposes and objectives of this dissertation. Any text cited from other sources is referred to and cited accordingly.