Women, work, and health

The U.S. Bureau of National Affairs has conducted several surveys asking women to rate the seriousness of 11 hazards thought to affect female workers. In 1995 the women respondents ranked them in the following order: 1) stress, 2) repetitive motions, 3) AIDS, 4) violence, 5) VDTs, 6) indoor air pollution, 7) hepatitis, 8) injury on the job, 9) reproductive hazards, 10) tuberculosis, and 11) other infectious diseases. A parallel list of 11 hazards thought to affect male workers would look very different. The purpose of this paper is to explore why this is so and what it implies for the occupational health research agenda.