Gender issues in the measurement of physical and psychological safety

Summary

Traditional methods of analyzing the physical and psychological demands of the job have been criticized as potentially biased against female sex‐typed jobs. This poses a potential problem when information about the job is used to develop safety training programs or injury prevention programs. In this paper, the problem of measuring safety‐related aspects of jobs is explored from a perspective which incorporates attention to gender issues. Potential problems are identified in the measurement of characteristics such as physical safety, responsibility for the physical safety of others, and psychological safety. A shortcoming in the literature deserving of further research is also identified in terms of the relative paucity of measures of responsibility for psychological safety. The failure to pay attention to gender issues may lead to problems in safety training, due to deficiencies in assessment, evaluation, and design.

Keywords:

• Gender issues
• psychological safety
• physical safety
• safety
• safety training