• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제6권4호
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• pp.289-294
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• 2015

Background: The type of payment is one of the important factors that has an effect on the health of employees, as a basic working condition. In the conventional research field of occupational safety and health, only the physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic factors are treated as the main hazardous factors. Managerial factors and basic working conditions such as working hours and the type of payment are neglected. This paper aimed to investigate the association of the type of payment and the exposure to the various hazardous factors as an heuristic study. Methods: The third Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute in 2011 was used for this study. Among the total sample of 50,032 economically active persons, 34,788 employees were considered for analysis. This study examined the relation between the three types of payment such as basic fixed salary and wage, piece rate, and extra payment for bad and dangerous working conditions and exposure to hazardous factors like vibration, noise, temperature, chemical contact, and working at very high speeds. Multivariate regression analysis was used to measure the effect of the type of payment on working hours exposed to hazards. Results: The result showed that the proportion of employees with a basic fixed salary was 94.5%, the proportion with piece rates was 38.6%, and the proportion who received extra payment for hazardous working conditions was 11.7%. Conclusion: The piece rate was associated with exposure to working with tight deadlines and stressful jobs. This study had some limitations because KWCS was a cross-sectional survey.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.40-48
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• 2019

Purpose: This study assessed the current working conditions and job satisfaction on aquatic therapy performed by physical therapists in South Korea. Methods: A total of 139 (managers: 53, staff: 86) physical therapists participated in this survey (90 questionnaires) and the data were analyzed using the SPSS 21.0 Windows. Results: The retention conditions of aquatic therapy facilitation was high in the rehabilitation centers (or disabled living facilities) and rehabilitation hospitals. On the other hand, there were regional variations. The physical therapists in this field were likely to have limitations or restrictions of professional aquatic therapy education. The subjects showed a tendency for a career interruption during their fifth working year. The overall job satisfaction on aquatic therapy of physical therapists was high (managers: 94.3%, staff: 95.3%, p=0.276), but the work intensity was higher than the other parts of physical therapy and the relative reward was comparatively low (managers: 60.3%, staff: 66.3%, p=0.865). Conclusion: Based on this study, the current working conditions regarding aquatic therapy by physical therapists were assessed. These results will help enhance aquatic therapy and/or in aquatic therapy facilitation.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.137-145
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• 2012

This study was planned to analyze the effect of the types of employment on work-related injury experience. The types of employment may have influenced on working conditions including the exposure to risk factors. Korean Working Conditions Survey have collected the various working conditions as household survey with structured questionnaire. The probability of work-related injury of self-employed is more than that of regular worker. But there is no difference of probability of work-related injury experience between regular and irregular worker controlled by general characteristics and the exposure to risk factors. Authors have found that the type of employment have indirect effect on work-related injury experience via the exposure to risk factors. The result of this study may be heuristic one because of data limitation as cross sectional survey data. In future, well designed survey data can evaluate the effect of the type of employment on safety and health status.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.257-266
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• 2014

This study was planned to investigate the effect of the exposure to hazard factors on work environment satisfaction. Existing researches about job satisfaction have focused on the general working conditions, such as working hours, wage, human relationship, job task and so on. Korean Working Conditions Survey was used for this study because that relevant questions were included. The effect of the exposure to hazard factors on work environment satisfaction may be produced by hierarchical regression analysis because of comparison with existing model for work environment satisfaction. The exposure to hazards factors were statistically significant effect on work environment satisfaction after adjusting other confounding variables, such as gender, age, educational level, job security, work hour, work load, work autonomy, social support, etc. This study has some limitation because that KWCS was cross sectional survey. Some researches about the causal effect and its mechanism may be suggested as future study.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제37권5호
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• pp.62-73
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• 2022

This study investigates the working conditions of shift workers according to age group by analyzing the sixth Korean Working Conditions Survey's data. A total of 1,323 shift workers were extracted from the dataset. Three age groups (A: 20s-30s, B: 40s-50s, C: 60s and above) were statistically compared in terms of health problems, emotional hazard exposure, work-life imbalance, and satisfaction with working conditions. Elderly shift workers (those in their 60s and above) had significantly more severe health problems and work-life imbalance, greater exposure to emotional hazards, and lower satisfaction with working conditions than young shift workers (those in their 20s-50s). The study's findings reveal the characteristics of working conditions for elderly shift workers and would be useful for improving shift workers' quality of life, as well as safety and productivity in the workplace.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.324-338
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• 2021

Background: We hypothesized that the growing demand of Korean workers for work-life balance would change the factors influencing job satisfaction. We sought to verify our hypothesis by conducting a conjoint analysis based on the Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS). Methods: We analyzed the raw data of the KWCS, conducted by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute from 2006 to 2017. To complete the analysis, we counted on a conjoint model of analysis, typically used in the analysis of customer satisfaction. The dependent variable was the satisfaction of workers with their working conditions, and the independent variables were the job quality indicators identified by Eurofound. Results: The factors that have the greatest impact on working conditions satisfaction are summarized as follows: "physical environment" for the first wave, "adverse social behavior" for the second wave, "occupational status" for the third and fourth waves, and "management quality" for the fifth wave. "Earnings" were not a major factor in determining employee job satisfaction, and the relative importance index is decreasing. Conclusion: According to the results of the analysis of the tendencies of Korean workers, the factors that affect the satisfaction with the working conditions have changed over time. It is crucial to identify factors that affect working conditions to assure the health and productivity of workers. The results of this study demonstrate that policymakers and employers are required to attentively consider human relations and social environment at work to improve working conditions in the future.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.556-565
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• 2014

Objectives: This study is aimed at inquiring into the grasp of real condition of working environment and improvements by calculating the hypertension distribution consequent on job stress risk and exposure level of alleviating factors. In addition, this study is intending to estimate the hypertension distribution through socio-demographic factors and level of stressors occurring at working environment, such as high workload, low control, low support, job insecurity, long working hours, low income. Methods: This study estimated the hypertension distribution using the tertiary Korean Working Conditions Survey data, and conducted comparative analysis according to the category of individual questionnaire items using odds ratio. Result: As a result of study, it was found that in the event that working environment satisfaction is low and business & an immediate superior's attitudes are negative, the hypertension distribution was high. Particularly, it was found that physical risk factor musculoskeletal risk factor, and mental risk factor in a workplace were all increasing the hypertension distribution. Conclusions: With the aged workers' labor market participation ratio increasing, hypertension could be a major issue in the field of Occupational Safety and Health. Thus, it's necessary that the relevant employer should lower the hypertension distribution through creation of pleasant working environment and inducement of workers to improve in the relations with their superiors. As for the uppermost limit of this study, there is a limit to clarifying the mechanism of hypertension through multivariate statistics analysis because it's difficult to establish causal relationship by individual questionnaire item as the working conditions survey is made by cross-sectional study. In the follow-up research, this study is going to do research on the mechanism of hypertension through questionnaire supplementation and in-depth analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.45-65
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• 2016

근래에 들어 기업 간 경쟁이 심화되고, 경제상황이 불안해지면서 근로시간의 단축은 물론 비정규직이나 시간제 근로자의 양산, 새로운 탄력근무제나 교대제의 도입 등이 일어났고, 따라서 근로시장은 급속한 변화를 겪고 있다. 이에 이 연구에서는 우선 탐색적 자료분석 방법을 이용하여 KWCS(Korean Working Conditions Survey)와 EWCS (European Working Conditions Survey) 데이터로부터 근로환경의 측면에서 근로자의 사회 인구학적 특성이 어떤지 살펴보고자 한다. 이어서 KWCS와 EWCS의 데이터를 가지고 탐색적 자료분석 방법으로 주당 근로시간이 성별, 연령별, 종사상 지위별, 직종별, 산업별로 얼마나 차이가 나는지 알아보고자 한다. 마지막으로 근로자들을 건강이 적어도 좋은 편에 속하는 사람들과 건강이 적어도 나쁜 편에 속하는 사람들로 나누어 두 그룹 간 주당 평균근로시간이 성별, 연령별, 종사상 지위별, 직종별, 산업별로 얼마나 차이가 나는지 표를 통해 먼저 살펴보고, 주당 평균근로시간을 반응변수로 보고 이에 영향을 미치는 요인들 (건강, 성, 연령, 종사상 지위 등)의 효과를 점검하는 단순회귀 및 다중회귀 분석을 실시하고자 한다.

• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• 제35권
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• pp.8.1-8.12
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• 2023

Background: Prolonged use of visual display terminal (VDT) can cause eyestrain, dry eyes, blurred vision, double vision, headache and musculoskeletal symptoms (neck, shoulder, and wrist pain). VDT working hours among workers have greatly increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between VDT working hours and headache/eyestrain in wage workers using data from the sixth Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) (2020-2021) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We analyzed the sixth KWCS data of 28,442 wage workers aged 15 years or older. The headache/eyestrain that occurred in the last year was assessed. The VDT work group included workers who use VDT always, almost always, and three-fourth of the working hours, while the non-VDT work group included workers who use VDT half of the working hours, one-fourth of the working hours, almost never, and never. To analyze the relationship between VDT working hours and headache/eyestrain, the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using logistic regression analysis. Results: Among the non-VDT work group, 14.4% workers experienced headache/eyestrain, whereas 27.5% workers of the VDT work group experienced these symptoms. For headache/eyestrain, the VDT work group showed adjusted OR of 1.94 (95% CI: 1.80-2.09), compared with the non-VDT work group, and the group that always used VDT showed adjusted OR of 2.54 (95% CI: 2.26-2.86), compared with the group that never used VDT. Conclusions: This study suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, as VDT working hours increased, the risk of headache/eyestrain increased for Korean wage workers.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.219-229
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• 2014

Employees used computer significantly(IT employee) is increased by technological development in workplace. This study tried to find the magnitude of IT employees and the profile of their working conditions and ill health experiences in South Korea. Korean Working Conditions Survey was used with descriptive and mean difference test in order to find the difference working conditions and ill health status among the groups classified by the degree of using computer during work. Some of working conditions was positively correlated with the density of computer use such as work autonomy, the exposure of repetitive movement of hand and arms. The pain of upper extreme was also more frequently found in the highest user group of computer than lower user groups. Based on the result of hierarchical regression analysis, the effect of computer using on the experience of work-related symptoms after controlling other factors was shown as U shape. This study as heuristic one suggest that some of depth analysis with hypothesis will be done to identify the causes and pathway of impact of computer use.