In 2008-09 Millennium India Education Foundation worked on a project on sensitization of working women about their work related occupational hazards.
The project was based on a survey of about 400 working women in the BPO and call centre industry in Delhi and NCR. The project was supported by the Department of Science & Technology, India (RVPSP Division). It was a 12 month project with MIEF field researchers as well as psychologists involved from the drafting of a survey, data analysis and interpretation.
While it is tempting to share the details with you here, we will refrain from doing so, because as you can imagine, the data is quite dated now, and perhaps new survey results are far more helpful. However, we did want to highlight this project for several reasons and our learnings that can be carried forward for people doing research on working women in India. We also hope these insights are helpful for women and girls who are in the workforce now and help build awareness.
- Working women and health via
- Many working women did not seem ‘aware’ of what ‘occupational hazards’ meant. We often tend to think mental issues, namely stress, anxiety are not a part of hazards. Often, only physical manifestations are seen as ‘harmful’. While it is of course tough to pin point the exact reason for stress or dis-comfort, women/ girls need to realise that it may be related to their workplace- and it is definitely something they can/must acknowledge
- Balanced work-life balance– Many women seem to be suffering from what we call a ‘superwoman complex’ which means they guilt themselves into thinking that they need to be perfect everywhere from work to home. While we would all like these ideal conditions, it is important to recognize that house work is work too! So if carrying office work back home along side doing house work means double the amount of effort and can lead to further stress. It is important to realise this!
- I’m being selfish complex: Many women tend to give themselves less credit for their work and often think if they bring up issues where they feel they need to put themselves on priority, it is some sort of ‘selfish behaviour’. This however, is definitely not the case. They key thing we recommend such girls is that if you’re not healthy, you can’t put anyone else on priority as well !
We hope you girls take a day to think through your work life and find a healthy balance in leading through your careers and health successfully!