Around 63% women absenteeism due to health problems in metro cities: PHD Chamber Survey

Travel for more than one hour to reach their workplace; only 27% of working women reported having a dispensary with a lady doctor in their respective workplace

According to a recent survey study by PHD Research Bureau of PHD Chamber of commerce & Industry, a majority of women (70%)  work for 8-10 hours in a day travel as large as 30 kilometres and travel for more than an hour to reach their workplace. 

In spite of the long hours spent at work and the long travel distance, a positive trend in work satisfaction was seen. About 64% of the women participants stated that they were either completely satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their work, said the survey study.

Around 5000 working and non-working women were surveyed from the metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai by the Research Bureau of PHD Chamber during January-February 2017 through a structured questionnaire.

Interestingly, the majority of women (84%) reported that they devote 2-4 hours in household work and 49% said that they have domestic help to do household work.

However, little support was seen coming from family members in running household errands with women, reflecting on the fact that the sole responsibility of home management has been always been on the lady of the house.

The survey study is an endeavour to explore and strike a balance between work, life and health status of women in India. It explores the efforts made by the employer to provide a healthy work environment for their female employees.

The results of the analysis have been divided into three basic categories; Work Life Balance, Health Concerns, and Workplace Health Provisions.

The findings elucidate that a majority 63% women reported missing work (absenteeism) due to health issues. As many as 41% of women have  reported cold, cough and fever as the main health reason for missing work.

An equally interesting trend is the high percent of aches and pains (27%) especially back pain and headache which has also been reported widely in the survey.

An analysis of the percentage of income spent on own health showed that 52% of women spent less than 10% of their income on health, while only 5% spent more than 40%.

About 2% of the respondents said that they have crèche facilities in their offices. This is a major grey area where the employers can work to provide a conducive environment to their female employees.

7% of the respondents said that they have work from home facilities in their offices. It was also found that work from home facility was availed more by women after marriage or child birth or in case of illness of a family member.

It was found that 58% women trusted private healthcare facilities more than government or local clinics.

It was revealed from the analysis that 69% of the women had a provision of paid sick leaves at their respective work places.

About 37% of women reported 3-6 months maternity benefits being given to them.

The infrastructural provision showed that 83% of women’s workplace had separate toilets for them. However, only 27% of working women reported having a dispensary with a lady doctor in their workplace.

Shuttling between the various tasks at hand, women often overlook their health and continue to unconditionally manage both home and work simultaneously.