Employmentweb_low

EmploymEnt, Work, And hEAlth InEquAlItIEs - a global perspective
Working in racially segregated occupations is associated with poor health, regardless of worker’s race.
Background: racial segregation provides a potential mechanism linking occupations with adverse health outcomes.
methods: an african-american segregation index (i(aa)) was calculated for us worker groups from the nationally
representative pooled 1986-1994 national health interview survey (n = 451,897). ranking and logistic regression
analyses were utilised to document associations between i (aa) and poor worker health.
results: there were consistent positive associations between employment in segregated occupations and poor
worker health, regardless of covariate adjustment or stratification (e.g., age, gender, income, education, or
geographic region). this association between segregation and poor health was stronger for white workers as
compared to african-american workers.
Conclusions: this recent example in the us shows that occupational segregation negatively affects all workers.
potential mechanisms need to be identified through which occupational segregation may adversely impact worker
health.
Source
chung-bridges, K., Muntaner, c., Fleming, l. e., lee, d. J., arheart, K. l., leblanc, w. g., et al. (2008). occupational
segregation as a determinant of us worker health. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 51, 555-567.
selected case studies
Case study 41. Health and the social relations of work in small enterprises. - Joan M. eakin
in many countries (and moreso in developing nations), about one-third of the workforce is employed in
enterprises with fewer than fifty workers, with most of these having fewer than ten. rates of injury are higher in small
workplaces, and formal prevention activities are typically minimal and difficult to promote (hasle & limborg, 2006).
small workplaces have distinctive organisational features, including a relatively low social distance between
employers and workers, minimal managerial infrastructure, informal and personalised relations of authority and an
internal moral economy of mutual expectations and obligations. although many are actually family businesses, they
are widely characterised as “like a family,” meaning that workers are treated and “cared about” as persons more than
as units of labour. occupational health systems, however, are largely designed for large, unionised workplaces, and
have limited or perverse effects on small organisations (eakin & Maceachen, 1998; eakin, Maceachen, & clarke,
2003). For example, efforts to engage employers in preventive responsibilities can be thwarted by the employers’
understanding of their relationship with workers. “i don’t babysit them [workers]” declares the proprietor of an auto
repair shop. “…besides, you can’t tell a welder what to do! i leave it [safety] up to them.”
when illness or injuries occur in small workplaces, they can spawn serious interpersonal strain and loss of trust,
which can precipitate an increasing sensitivity to the conflicting interests of labour and capital among workers (“he
[employer] was like a father to me. but when you get hurt and cannot work, you are like garbage. i see now, he only
cares about the business”) and a sense of betrayal and desperation in employers (the loss of a key worker can put
the entire enterprise in jeopardy). such social dislocation can lead to resistance and retaliation, compounding the
potential for conflict: an assembly worker with unheeded illness claims “pays back” her employer by not reporting
production errors as she formerly did, while an employer offers an injured worker a hated, meaningless “modified”
job hoping that she will quit and relieve him of his legal obligation to re-employ an injured worker. clearly, one size
does not fit all: any attempt to change health-damaging working conditions has to take into account the distinctive
social relations of work in small workplaces.
References
eakin, J., & Maceachen, e. (1998). health and the social relations of work: a study of the health-related experiences of
employees in small workplaces. Sociology of Health and Illness, 20(6), 896-914.
eakin, J., Maceachen, e., & clarke, J. (2003). “playing it smart” with return to work: small workplace experience under
ontario´s policy of self-reliance and early return. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 1(2), 20-41.
hasle, p., & limborg, h. J. (2006). a review of the literature on preventive occupational health and safety activities in small
enterprises. Industrial Health, 44, 6-12.
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