Around 64% women satisfied with their work in metros; 77% women asked for more women empowerment policies: PHD Chamber Survey

According to a survey study on “Work Life and Balance & Health Concerns of Women” undertaken by PHD Research Bureau of PHD Chamber of commerce & Industry, majority of women participants (64%) stated that they were either completely satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their work at their respective work places.

Although majority of women (70%) work for 8-10 hours in a day; travel as large as 30 kilometres and devote more than an hour in travel to reach their workplaces, a positive trend in work satisfaction was seen.

However, majority of women (77%) said that Government should come out with more policies for women empowerment and implement effectively the policies for the empowerment and welfare of women in the society.

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

Of the 5000 surveyed women, 56% (2800) respondents were working women while 44% (2200) were non-working women.

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 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.