Women Are a Greater Percentage of All Work-Related Fatalities Than Was the Case Five Years Ago

New statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2020, 4,764 American workers died after suffering injuries while working. This was down by more than 10 percent from 2019. Obviously, with millions of people working from home and the shutdown of many businesses due to the pandemic, it is not surprising that workplace fatalities were down in 2020.

When we break down the figures by gender, we see that 387 women died from work related-injuries in 2020. This was 8.1 percent of all work-related fatalities due to injury.  in 2019, women were 8.2 percent of all fatalities suffered at work. 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. For men, the number of work-related fatalities dropped from 4,803 in 2016 to 4,377 in 2020.

While women were just 8.1 percent of all work-related fatalities, they made up 16.3 percent of all the people who were murdered at work in 2020.