A Study on Safety Management for Aging Society

According to a recent report, Korea first reached aging society in 2000 and it is forecasted that the number of aged people over 65 years old will increase form 7.13%(2000) to 14% or more of total population in Korea in 2022. As many aged peoples are employed as day labor under the financial circumstances after Korean Financial Crisis, it is critical that we should take safety control measures for them. Thus, this study focused on analyzing aged accidents in terms of their characteristics, based on the actual trend of industrial accidents from 1996 to 2001 and the applications of medical treatment for the affected or wounded in Busan metropolitan area for recent 3 years (1999 to 2001) in order to analyze accident characteristics to cope with emergent aging period. As a result of analyzing the above data by job type, it was found that the construction work amounted to 38% of total job type. This result implies that accidents of the aged often occurs in 3D jobs including construction works without reasonable automation, which requires us to establish some preventive policies against those accidents. Moreover, it is found that rapid increasing accidents such as upset or occupational diseases or damages are typically attributed to those in the aged, mainly because the aged employees over 55 years old often have disadvantageous physical conditions such as relatively degraded balance and muscular control ability comparing to the younger. Therefore, it recommended that we should make effective safety policies for the aged and actively apply those policies to them. Moreover, it is required that we should encourage them to actively participate in safety compliance through corresponding trainings.

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