Works councils and workplace health promotion in Germany

Arbeitspapier

From a theoretical viewpoint, there can be market failures resulting in an underprovision of occupational health and safety. Works councils may help mitigate these failures. Using establishment data from Germany, our empirical analysis confirms that the incidence of a works council is significantly associated with an increased likelihood that the establishment provides more workplace health promotion than required by law. This result also holds in a recursive bivariate probit regression accounting for the possible endogeneity of works council incidence. Furthermore, analyzing potentially moderating factors such as collective bargaining coverage, industry, type of ownership, multiestablishment status and product market competition, we find a positive association between works councils and workplace health promotion for the various types of establishments examined. Finally, we go beyond the mere incidence of workplace health promotion and show that works councils are positively associated with a series of different measures of workplace health promotion.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Research Papers in Economics ; No. 2/19

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health ; Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy ; Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining: General ; Labor Standards: Working Conditions
• Subject: Non-union employee representation ; works council ; occupational health and safety ; workplace health promotion

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Jirjahn, Uwe ; Mohrenweiser, Jens ; Smith, Stephen C.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Universität Trier, Fachbereich IV - Volkswirtschaftslehre
• (where): Trier
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/207034
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET