Employmentweb_low

EmploymEnt, Work, And hEAlth InEquAlItIEs - a global perspective
migrant trauma survivors), due to growing environmental degradation
and declining land fertility, particularly in developing countries. This
phenomenon might result in millions of people who are vulnerable to
various diseases and all forms of exploitations including forced labour.
supervising and timing workers in the
textile industry, topnew knitting Group Co.
the Group takes "Green, nature and
health" as its product theme, paying
attention to the technological innovations.
Beijing (China).
source: © ilo/M. crozet (2007)
8.3. WorKinG condiTions
in this section, we discuss evidence on the way working conditions are
contributing to the production of health inequalities. health-related
working conditions are very broad. a difference exists between
“material” and “psychosocial” working conditions. The first refers
to physical impacts, the toxicity of agents or the effects of
maladjusted work stations or devices (ergonomic working
conditions). These material working conditions relate more or less
directly to health through a number of physical, chemical and
biological processes resulting from exposure (figure 24).
Psychosocial working conditions include harmful characteristics
of work organisation or the activity content of jobs.
Psychosocial working conditions are related to health via the
“stress process”. The stress process leads to health problems as a
result of modifications in the extent to which people can cope with
stress and through physio-pathological and behavioural changes.
as indicated in figure 24, there is also a clear link between
employment conditions and working conditions. This link creates
situations of cumulative adversity in precarious, informal, forced
and other types of employment differing from the standard of fulltime
employment. employment conditions (for example, job
insecurity) can also have stressful consequences. adverse working
conditions are in fact far more prevalent in non-standard employment
conditions (see figure 24).
WorKinG condiTions and healTh, PaThWays and
MechanisMs
While, for the sake of this overview, a distinction between types of
working conditions is maintained, in reality they are sometimes less
easy to separate. for example, high work pressure is clearly an
aspect of psychosocial work organisation, while at the same time it
can be very demanding in a physical sense, too. so, material hazards
can have psychosocial implications, and psychosocial hazards can
have material consequences (Macleod & smith, 2003).
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