Piece rates and their effects on health and safety – A literature review

• The purpose of this study was to carry out a broad survey and analysis of relevant research articles about "piece rate" wages and their effects on health and safety, which were published internationally until the fall of 2008. The aim was to summarize and describe the state of the art of the research in this field and if possible draw conclusions from the accumulated research results. A total of 75 research articles were examined extensively and 31 of these were found relevant and had sufficient quality to serve the purpose of this study. The findings of these relevant articles are summarized and analyzed in the survey. Since the late 1980s, there has been a change of research focus regarding previous termpiece rates and their effects on health and safety.next term More recent research shows a clear interest for previous termhealth,next term musculoskeletal injuries, physical workload, pains and occupational injuries. The previous interest in risk behavior, security and accidents is still there, but no longer dominates the research scene.Although research is still sparse and fragmented, much of the accumulated knowledge about the previous termeffects of piece ratenext term work tells us that previous termpiece ratesnext term in many situations have a negative previous termeffect on health and safety.next term The fact that 27 of the 31 studied articles found negative previous termeffects of piece ratesnext term on different aspects of previous termhealth and safetynext term does not prove causality, but together they give very strong support for the hypothesis that in most situations previous termpiece ratesnext term have negative previous termeffects on health and safety.next termIn order to achieve better knowledge about the previous termeffects of piece ratesnext term in branches where previous termpiece ratesnext term are regarded problematic, further research is needed and such research has to be designed to meet the specific questions that are to be answered.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Piece rate

Piece work

Piece wage

Health Safety

Industrial Work Environment

Industriell produktionsmiljö

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)