Workplace Threats to Health and Job Turnover Among Women Workers

Learning Objectives Describe how women working under different conditions find their jobs to be more or less threatening than the norm. Clarify the ways in which women workers’ past work-related experiences relate to present concern over poor indoor air quality or hazardous materials. Identify how communicating about workplace risks—by employers and coworkers—influences current concern or job change. Is job turnover related to concern about workplace health risks? Using data from a national sample of working women, we examined the relationships among workplace risk communications, worker concerns about workplace threats from hazardous substances, indoor air quality, and job change. Eight percent reported changing a job as a result of concern over workplace threats to health. Previous workplace injury predicted concern about hazardous materials and indoor air quality as well as job change, but employer communication about workplace health risks was associated with less job change and less concern about indoor air quality. Women worry about workplace threats to their health enough to change their jobs, but employers may have the power to cut turnover costs and reduce disruption to workers’ lives through the use of risk communication programs.