Air pollution and the world of work

The report examines the intersection of air pollution and labor markets in East and Southeast Asia, highlighting a significant gap in research and policy regarding informal workers. It finds that while formal sectors are regulated, informal workers—including street vendors and agricultural laborers—face high exposure with minimal social protection. Health burdens are highest in China and Mongolia for ambient pollution, and in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar for household pollution. The report argues that current solutions are overly technocentric and fail to address the social inequalities and structural vulnerabilities that determine exposure levels.

• In 2019, occupational exposure to particulate matter (PM), gases, and fumes caused over 200,000 premature deaths in East and Southeast Asia, with the majority occurring in China.
• Mongolia experienced the highest annual average air pollution in both 2019 and 2020, while China had the highest average PM2.5 population-weighted exposure in 2019.
• The health burden from household air pollution is most severe in low-income countries, specifically Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar.
• Research on air pollution and employment is heavily biased toward the formal labor force, leaving the informal sector—particularly in urban settings—largely underexamined.
• Gendered research on air pollution often relies on stereotypes, focusing on women's roles as domestic caregivers and the impacts of cookstoves, while overlooking men's exposure in traffic-facing or industrial roles.
• Workplace hierarchies based on gender, social class, and seniority result in unequal exposure, as higher-status workers often shift the most polluted tasks to those at the bottom of the hierarchy.
• Occupational air pollution causes a range of severe health issues, including carcinogenic risks from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic metal fumes, and lung function decline in sectors such as printing and transport.
• No country in the reviewed region has set annual mean PM2.5 standards that meet the 2021 WHO guideline of 5 μg/m³, although Singapore is the closest at 12 μg/m³.
• Labor and social security policies generally target waged and industrial workers, effectively excluding informal, self-employed, and domestic workers from health and safety protections.
• Urban public space policies treat informal workers, such as street vendors, as obstacles to traffic flow to be relocated rather than as a vulnerable group exposed to air pollution.
• Non-governmental initiatives to combat air pollution are predominantly technocentric, focusing on emissions monitoring and technology deployment while ignoring structural vulnerabilities and workers' access to healthcare.

APA

Slater, J., Han, J. Y.-C., Nikam, C. A. J., Archer, D., Nguyen, H., & Kim, D. (2022). Air pollution and the world of work. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/asia-air-pollution-work-sei2022.040.pdf

Chicago

Slater, Jessica, Jenny Yi-Chen Han, Charrlotte Adelina Jaee Nikam, Diane Archer, Ha Nguyen, and Dayoon Kim. Air pollution and the world of work. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/asia-air-pollution-work-sei2022.040.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{slater2022air, author = {Slater, Jessica and Han, Jenny Yi-Chen and Nikam, Charrlotte Adelina Jaee and Archer, Diane and Nguyen, Ha and Kim, Dayoon}, title = {{Air pollution and the world of work}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/asia-air-pollution-work-sei2022.040.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }