Employmentweb_low

employment relations and health inequalities: a conceptual and empirical overvieW
among floricultural workers in Colombia (Case study 38).
Pesticides and chemicals are also widely used in high-income
countries, where agricultural workers are often excluded from
occupational health and safety legislation. In many service
occupations, female workers may be exposed to the threat of
violence from clients or to sexual harassment from fellow
workers. Over the last decade, an increasing number of studies
have indicated adverse health consequences of sexual
harassment at work (Kauppinen, 1998). a survey among nurses in
a hospital in Turkey revealed that 75 per cent of the nurses
reported having been sexually harassed during their nursing
practice: 44 per cent by male physicians, 34 per cent by patients,
14 per cent by relatives of patients, and 9 per cent by others (Kisa
& Dziegielewski, 1996). Sexual harassment may result in guilt and
shame, anxiety, tension, irritability, depression, sleeplessness,
fatigue and headaches, which in turn may lead to absenteeism and
reduced efficiency at work.
One survey on gender inequality, work and health (Messing &
Östlin, 2006), however, shows that in low-income countries we
know little about the health effects of working conditions for
women. One reason for this is that systematic research is difficult.
Women's work in many countries is still performed in the
domestic sphere and in the informal economy, and is thus
invisible in the public, economic, and institutional spheres. as a
result, many work-related hazards, injuries and diseases are not
recorded as occupational, are not compensated by work insurance
systems and are not included in occupational health databases.
research also indicates a higher than average risk of
unemployment among low-paid female workers, which may also
have negative social and health consequences on families.
With this in mind, let us turn now to a review the global impact of
occupational injuries, work-related hazards and outcomes, and
workplace psychosocial stressors in their relation to health.
pesticide sprayers, sugar cane field
(nicaragua).
source: marc schenker (2004)
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