The construction industry all over the world plays a very important role in making the world sustainable. It is hard to prevent accidents in the construction industry. Pakistan is one of those countries suffering the highest number of accidents in the construction industry; Pakistan reported several accidents in the construction industry, which leads projects to delay, client displeasure and excessive cost. This study aims to identify the common factors and causes contributing to accidents in the construction industry and find out the critical factors and causes to accidents in the construction industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 140 respondents from the Pakistan construction industry to achieve the goal. The collected data was analysed using the mean index method by statistical software SPSS. Based on the data obtained, the factors with a mean value of 3.8 were considered critical causes. Fourteen (14) critical causes were identified that contribute to accidents in Pakistan's construction industry. The top Five causes are, from group Management commitment to safety there are 3 causes with a high mean value. 1. Risk assessments be done to reduce the chance of injury with a 4.58 mean value. 2. Introduce a Safety Management System (SMS) to improve construction safety, with a 4.49 mean value. Similarly, there is one cause from the scaffold and ladder safety group, 3. Properly designed/fastened scaffolds should be used, which are inspected daily, with a 4.46 mean value—also, use of personnel protection equipment (PPE) group one cause, 4. Workers at height always use a safety belt along with a lanyard, which is secured, with a 4.29 mean value. In last again 5th rank taken by, 5. The Company give the training to assure that all staff have good safety knowledge, with 4.27 mean value from group Management commitment to safety. Therefore, this research will help all government and commercial construction organizations avoid accidents in the construction sector.
Ahmed, S. M., Artuk, S. U., & Azhar, S. (2006). A QFD-based quantitative model for safety performance improvement for building construction projects. Proceedings of CIB W99 International Conference on Global Unity for Safety & Health in Construction, Tsinghua University, 28–30.
Al Haadir, S., & Panuwatwanich, K. (2011). Critical success factors for safety program implementation among construction companies in Saudi Arabia. Procedia Engineering, 14, 148–155.
Alzeraa, A. (2018). Impact of project communications effectiveness on construction disputes. Wayne State University.
Bhatti, I. A., Nagapan, S., Bhatti, N. B., Lakhiar, M. T., & Mahar, M. M. (2019). Building Construction Labour Productivity in Arid Climate Environment. Journal of Applied Engineering Sciences, 9(2), 125–130.
Chen, W. T., Tsai, I.-C., Merrett, H. C., Lu, S. T., Lee, Y.-I., You, J.-K., & Mortis, L. (2020). Construction safety success factors: a Taiwanese case study. Sustainability, 12(16), 6326.
Chen, Y., McCabe, B., & Hyatt, D. (2018). A resilience safety climate model predicting construction safety performance. Safety Science, 109, 434–445.
Choudhry, R. M., & Fang, D. (2008). Why operatives engage in unsafe work behavior: Investigating factors on construction sites. Safety Science, 46(4), 566–584. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2007.06.027
Da Silva, S. L. C., & Amaral, F. G. (2019). Critical factors of success and barriers to the implementation of occupational health and safety management systems: A systematic review of literature. Safety Science, 117, 123–132.
Dogan, E., Yurdusev, M. A., Yildizel, S. A., & Calis, G. (2021). Investigation of scaffolding accident in a construction site: A case study analysis. Engineering Failure Analysis, 120, 105108.
Enshassi, A., Ayyash, A., & Choudhry, R. M. (2016). BIM for construction safety improvement in Gaza strip: awareness, applications and barriers. International Journal of Construction Management, 16(3), 249–265.
Hao, Z., Seokho, C., Jay, Y., Madhav, N., & Seonghyeon, M. (2017). Development of a Safety Inspection Framework on Construction Sites Using Mobile Computing. Journal of Management in Engineering, 33(3), 04016048. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000495
Hatipkarasulu, Y. (2010). Project level analysis of special trade contractor fatalities using accident investigation reports. Journal of Safety Research, 41(5), 451–457.
Idrees, M. D., Hafeez, M., & Kim, J.-Y. (2017). Workers’ age and the impact of psychological factors on the perception of safety at construction sites. Sustainability, 9(5), 745.
International Labour Organization (ILO) . (2019). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS
Islam, M. M. (2006). WTO and Pakistan’s Construction Sector. Policy Perspectives, 81–99.
Khan, H. Z. A. (2017). Investigating the relationship between safety climate and safety performance in the construction of multi-storey buildings in Pakistan.
Kibe, K. N. (2016). Assessment of health and safety management on construction sites in Kenya: a case of construction projects in Nairobi County. Nairobi: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
Korkmaz, S., & Park, D. J. (2018). Comparison of Safety Perception between Foreign and Local Workers in the Construction Industry in Republic of Korea. Safety and Health at Work, 9(1), 53–58. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2017.07.002
Lakhiar, M. T., & Lakhiar, M. T. (2021). Occupational health and safety performance in high-rise building projects in Pakistan: a systematic literature review. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 4(1), 99–114.
Masood, R., Choudhry, R. M., Riaz, Z., Azhar, S., & Hinze, J. (2012). Role of managers in establishment of construction safety culture. CIB W099 International Conference “Modeling and Building Health and Safety”. Singapore, 651–659.
Michaels, D., & Barab, J. (2020). The occupational safety and health administration at 50: protecting workers in a changing economy. American Journal of Public Health, 110(5), 631–635.
Mohd Amir Shazwan, H., & Ee, J. M. (2018). Effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE) at construction site. Inti Journal, 1(12), 1–12.
Newaz, M. T., Davis, P., Jefferies, M., & Pillay, M. (2019a). The psychological contract: A missing link between safety climate and safety behaviour on construction sites. Safety Science, 112, 9–17.
Newaz, M. T., Davis, P., Jefferies, M., & Pillay, M. (2019b). Using a psychological contract of safety to predict safety climate on construction sites. Journal of Safety Research, 68, 9–19.
Nill, R. J. (2019). How to select and use personal protective equipment. Handbook of Occupational Safety and Health, 469–494.
Oladinrin, T. O., Ogunsemi, D. R., & Aje, I. O. (2012). Role of construction sector in economic growth: Empirical evidence from Nigeria. FUTY Journal of the Environment, 7(1), 50–60.
O’toole, M. (2002). The relationship between employees’ perceptions of safety and organizational culture. Journal of Safety Research, 33(2), 231–243.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). (2018). https://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/labour-force-survey-2017-18-annual-report
Pasman, H. J., Rogers, W. J., & Mannan, M. S. (2018). How can we improve process hazard identification? What can accident investigation methods contribute and what other recent developments? A brief historical survey and a sketch of how to advance. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 55, 80–106.
Pie?ko, M., Robak, A., B?azik-Borowa, E., & Szer, J. (2018). Safety conditions analysis of scaffolding on construction sites. Int. J. Civ. Env. Eng, 12(2), 72–77.
Purohit, D. P., Siddiqui, N. A., Nandan, A., & Yadav, B. P. (2018). Hazard identification and risk assessment in construction industry. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 13(10), 7639–7667.
Raheem, A. A. (2014). DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR A RECIPROCAL SAFETY IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM (RSIS) IN THE PAKISTANI CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY.
Raheem, A. A., & Hinze, J. (2012). Reasons for the poor implementation of worker safety in the construction industry of Pakistan: A contractor’s prospective. Proceedings of the CIB W099 International Conference “Modeling and Building Health and Safety”, Singapore, 10–11.
Raheem, A. A., & Issa, R. R. A. (2016). Safety implementation framework for Pakistani construction industry. Safety Science, 82, 301–314.
Singh, V., Singh, A., & Kaur, P. (2016). Key parameters of occupational safety for sustainable manufacturing units: A review. Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors: Proceedings of the AHFE 2016 International Conference on Safety Management and Human Factors, July 27-31, 2016, Walt Disney World®, Florida, USA, 153–161.
Swuste, P., Groeneweg, J., Van Gulijk, C., Zwaard, W., Lemkowitz, S., & Oostendorp, Y. (2020). The future of safety science. Safety Science, 125, 104593.
Tam, V. W. Y., & Fung, I. W. H. (2011). Tower crane safety in the construction industry: A Hong Kong study. Safety Science, 49(2), 208–215.
Tear, M. J., Reader, T. W., Shorrock, S., & Kirwan, B. (2020). Safety culture and power: interactions between perceptions of safety culture, organisational hierarchy, and national culture. Safety Science, 121, 550–561.
Timofeeva, S. S., Ulrikh, D. V, & Tsvetkun, N. V. (2017). Professional risks in construction industry. Procedia Engineering, 206, 911–917.
Umair, M., & Naz, L. (2019). The index value trend analysis of rural-urban migration in Pakistan: The current and future perspectives. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 39(3), 979–993.
Vornholt, K., Villotti, P., Muschalla, B., Bauer, J., Colella, A., Zijlstra, F., Van Ruitenbeek, G., Uitdewilligen, S., & Corbière, M. (2018). Disability and employment–overview and highlights. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(1), 40–55.
Williams, O. S., Hamid, R. A., & Misnan, M. S. (2018). Accident causal factors on the building construction sites: A review. International Journal of Built Environment and Sustainability, 5(1).
Xu, S., Zhang, M., & Hou, L. (2019). Formulating a learner model for evaluating construction workers’ learning ability during safety training. Safety Science, 116, 97–107.
Zahoor, H., Chan, A. P. C., Gao, R., & Utama, W. P. (2017). The factors contributing to construction accidents in Pakistan: Their prioritization using the Delphi technique. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 24(3), 463–485.
Zahoor, H., Chan, A. P. C., Masood, R., Choudhry, R. M., Javed, A. A., & Utama, W. P. (2016). Occupational safety and health performance in the Pakistani construction industry: stakeholders’ perspective. International Journal of Construction Management, 16(3), 209–219.
Zhang, J., Chen, X., & Sun, Q. (2019). An Assessment Model of Safety Production Management Based on Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method and Behavior?Based Safety. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2019(1), 4137035.
Zhao, D., & Lucas, J. (2015). Virtual reality simulation for construction safety promotion. International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 22(1), 57–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457300.2013.861853
Zhou, W., Zhao, T., Liu, W., & Tang, J. (2018). Tower crane safety on construction sites: A complex sociotechnical system perspective. Safety Science, 109, 95–108.
Mahdi, M., Nagapan, S., Sohu, S., & Ali, I. (2026). Causes of Accidents in Construction Industry of Pakistan. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 16(6), 82–98.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
