EPSU participated to ETUI Conference "Women's Health and Work" 4-8 March 2015

(24 March 2015) Women work more part time and temporary work contracts. These jobs provide limited access to training (leading to limited awareness of health risks), professional advancement (leading to static work and higher risk of MSD), rehabilitation (leading to chronic health problems) – these properties are rather accessible to or directed at fulltime workers or male dominated jobs. Even when women work fewer hours, they still end up working more than men in terms of unpaid work/household work: In average, women with children works approx. 70 h/w (approx. 35 paid) regardless of being single or in a relationship. Men still do less work in the home. Scientific studies often disregard women due to statistical anomalies, i.e. “hormonal fluctuations”. This invisibility leads women worse off in cases on compensation for health problems caused by occupation. On a positive note, the Danish nurses had night shifts recognised as causing breast cancer and were compensated (night shifts increase the risk of breast cancer by 4 times). Cultural perceptions stand in the way of taking female occupational illnesses seriously: “if you can do household work, you can also work”. In terms of mental health risks women are more exposed to harassment and bullying, usually this is less prevalent in higher social layers, but not for female workers: “Sexism is stronger than class”. Occupations segmentation is still prevalent; women in sales, men in management. Economically vulnerable women are confronted with worse working conditions: worse working hours and abusive demands from the employers. Bad job markets make fulltime jobs difficult to find. Austerity measures leads to women taking on more unpaid care work, furthermore the quality of public responsibilities like health and labour inspection is decreasing. The crisis has strengthened health inequalities.

- All presentations from the conference can be found here.

The full conference report is available here :