Evaluating the Safety Climate of Ethnic Minority Construction Workers in Hong Kong
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 143, Issue 4
Abstract
The Hong Kong construction industry is facing a severe labor shortage due to an aging workforce and a lack of new entrants, even at a time of a construction boom. To improve this situation, ethnic minorities (EMs) have been attracted to join the construction industry. In many developed countries, however, some unofficial statistics show that EMs suffer higher fatality rates than their local counterparts. It is clear that the safety of EM construction workers requires more attention. This study evaluates the safety climate among EM construction workers in Hong Kong, predicts the impact of safety climate factors that affect the likelihood of injury occurrences, and determines the relationships between safety climate and the safety performance of EM workers. A questionnaire survey was administrated to Pakistani and Nepalese construction workers in Hong Kong. The results reveal that the overall average safety climate score for both EM groups was not very high and that the Pakistani worker scores were higher than the Nepalese worker scores. Frontline EM workers scored less than EM supervisors and managers. Among seven safety climate factors, “Workers personal involvement in safety and health” was ranked highest and “Perception of safety rules and regulations” was ranked lowest. “Risk-taking behavior and perception of work risk” and “Workers personal involvement in safety and health” were identified as significant predictors of injury occurrence. Furthermore, the safety climate is significantly associated with the degree of safety participation and safety compliance. It is expected that the findings of the study will provide insight into the level of safety climate among EM workers, enabling organizations and practitioners around the world to improve safe working among EM workers.
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was jointly supported by grants from the Hong Kong Central Policy Unit’s Public Policy Research Funding Scheme and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The paper forms part of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Funded project entitled “Managing construction safety for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong” (Project No. 1-ZV9E) and the Public Policy Research project entitled “Improving safety communication of ethnic minority workers” (Project No. K-QZ1F), from which other deliverables are produced with different objectives/scope but sharing a common background and methodology. The authors would like to acknowledge and thank all the respondents who replied to the questionnaire; without their support this research would not have been possible. The authors would like to thank Prof. Michael Anson (Professor Emeritus in the Department of Building and Real Estate of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China) for his insightful comments and proofreading the manuscript.
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Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 143 • Issue 4 • October 2017
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©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Dec 2, 2015
Accepted: Jan 10, 2017
Published online: Apr 12, 2017
Discussion open until: Sep 12, 2017
Published in print: Oct 1, 2017
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