Reducing occupational accidents is vital to protect the health and safety of workers. This helps prevent economic losses and social losses while increasing labor productivity. More work accidents can lead to economic costs such as lost labor and health expenditures. Therefore, understanding the relationship between occupational accidents and the minimum wage can help assess the economic impacts and contribute to the formulation of more sustainable economic and occupational health and safety policies. The aim of this study is to examine the potential relationship between the minimum wage level and occupational accidents in Turkey and to statistically analyze the effects of occupational health and safety measures on the minimum wage level. This study is a retrospective analysis of the relationship between minimum wage and occupational accidents in Turkey between 2014 and 2021. The population of the study consisted of all employees who were included in the Social Security Institution Statistical Years between 2014-2021 and who experienced occupational accidents. No sampling criterion was used in the study and all employees were included. The data were obtained from the reports prepared by the Statistical Department of the General Directorate of Labor of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security of the Republic of Turkey between 2014-2021 and the statistical yearbooks of the Social Security Institution. JAMOVI 2.3.28 software program was used in the statistical analysis of the data. The significance level was taken as 0.05. A positive, statistically significant and strong relationship was found between minimum wage level and occupational accidents (r=0.897; p?.05). It was also found that the work accident variable explained 77% of the variance of the minimum wage variable. As a result, it is concluded that the increase in the minimum wage level does not reduce occupational accidents. However, the extent to which the increase in the minimum wage is meaningful in inflationary Turkey is open to debate. Further research on the macro and micro causes of occupational accidents is recommended.

Minimum Wage, Work Accident, Occupational Health And Safety.