This thesis explores a number of aspects related to occupational health and safety. It discusses health and safety at work legislation and policy, and reviews trends in reported workplace accidents and illnesses. Empirically, it considers the impact that various labour market characteristics and policies have upon a workplace's injury and ill-health record, focussing especially upon arrangements common in today's workplace such as working more than 48 hours per week and flexitime policies. It also returns to Adam Smith's compensating wage differentials theory, and examines its relevance today in the context of whether workers receive a wage premium for being exposed to high accident risk. The impact that trade unions have upon the risk premium is reconsidered, given ambiguity in the earlier literature. As an emerging labour market institution, the role of the health and safety committee is also considered. It further investigates workers' aversion to accident risk, and whether personal characteristics, specifically gender and family composition, can be used to predict which workers will sort into relatively hazardous occupations. The contribution that differences in accident rates between occupations will make to occupational gender segregation is then explored. Following a similar hypothesis, it also examines if there is a relationship between smoking behaviour and the accident risk of a person's occupation.