Safety without calm? Young workers` early job experiences and psychosocial risk in a comparative reading of Italy`s Legislative Decree 81/2008 and Japan

Background Italy's Legislative Decree 81/2008 includes work-related stress and organisational factors in its definition of prevention. For young workers in unstable jobs, the gap between legal principles and daily experience may be wide. Objective To compare how young workers in Italy and Japan perceive physical and mental safety, stress, and economic risk, and to ask what the patterns suggest about where prevention struggles. Methods Mixed-method dataset of 206 young workers (92 Italy, 114 Japan). Descriptive statistics and qualitative responses. Results Physical safety is high in both countries (88.8%), but mental safety is lower (74.4%). Stress affects 64.6%, rising to 77.2% in Italy against 54.4% in Japan. Main stressors are ordinary: responsibility, pace, heavy hours. In Italy, half report high precariousness risk; in Japan, one sixth. Stress does not decline with experience. Conclusions Young workers often feel physically safe but carry heavy psychosocial loads. The Italian framework already targets these dimensions, but the gap between principle and practice remains. Different risk bundles—precariousness in Italy, time intensity in Japan—require prevention to look beyond physical hazards.