Occupational Safety and Health Status of Food Delivery Drivers: Current Challenges and Enhancement Strategies

The rapid growth of the global platform economy has given rise to a sizable workforce of gig workers, represented by food delivery drivers, whose occupational safety and health (OSH) protection has become increasingly pressing concerns. The present study adopts an integrated policy and institutional analysis combined with a questionnaire-based case study to examine the current challenges and improvement pathways for the OSH protection of food delivery drivers. Specifically, the study analyzes and compares existing policies and institutional arrangements related to occupational safety protection for food delivery drivers. Taking Beijing, China, as a case study, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 100 food delivery riders (effective participants) to examine the current state of occupational safety within this workforce, forming the basis for targeted mitigation strategies. Policy analysis indicates that the current labor protection system exhibits significant gaps and misalignments. On the one hand, existing regulations do not clearly define the substantive employment relationship between platforms and food delivery drivers, resulting in ambiguous labor status under flexible employment models. Consequently, some food delivery drivers are excluded from the traditional labor protection framework, limiting their access to comprehensive labor rights. On the other hand, pilot policies have a narrow scope and insufficiently address the high-risk characteristics of this workforce. Platforms frequently externalize risks to third parties, leaving well-documented occupational hazards such as traffic accidents and overwork-related injuries insufficiently covered by institutional safeguards. The survey results further reveal that food delivery drivers commonly experience excessively long working hours, relatively low earnings per unit of time, and a weak sense of job belonging. Delivery platforms generally demonstrate insufficient investment in safety measures and inadequate training efforts. In response to these issues, this study proposes targeted countermeasures from three dimensions. These include legislative and institutional development, government and industry regulation, and corporate management. Together, they form a systematic framework to improve occupational safety protection for food delivery drivers. The findings offer new insights for enhancing the OSH of this workforce and provide a useful reference for advancing protection mechanisms for other forms of emerging employment.