Poster Presentation at IEA2018@Florence, Italy

1. -----------
Lilis Surienty (lilis@usm.my) & Sakeena Zahidah (sakeena.zahidah@gmail.com)
School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia. 11800 Minden. Pulau Pinang. Malaysia
Video-Poster
About the author
Dr Lilis researches are focused on finding a sustainable safety
management practices solutions for SMEs.
She has ongoing researches with partners in Canada, Norway and
Britain.
Acknowledgments:
MOE Grant: 203/PMGT/6730090
Introduction
Methodology
Results
DiscussionS
Aims
Using the semi-structured interview, we would like to investigate;
• The Gender Responsive OSH, differences in perspectives between
regulators as implementers and employees as recipients of safety and
health practices.
Participants
• 7 tenured Top management (4 men and 3 women) from OSH training or social
security provider agencies and regulators or personnels from the safety and health
department representing the regulators perspectives.
• Groups of women and men employees working in the service sector, i.e. education
services were selected to help provide the employees perspectives.
• Participants are from all over Malaysia.
• Interview length: an average of 2 hours, one-to-one, group discussion for
employees, recorded & transcribed
• Housework is the dominant cited reasons for women and
is highly weighted towards women group.
• The survey also showed that a large majority (78%) of
women either working or not are doing care work
(elderly and children).
• 74% of the working women are doing care work.
• Women have greater tendency to be responsible for care
work and housework regardless of their work status.
Gender Awareness. Employees
acknowledged the differences
that exist in responding to the
work demand and PPE
requirements such as clothing,
VS Regulators are not gender
sensitive. Workers are workers.
Despite of having a guideline for Gender Responsive OSH since 1990,
q Understanding of gender needs are low among key stakeholders at
the workplace as such that little effort is done to assess work
according to gender needs.
q Gender responsive OSH does not exist or practice in the workplace.
q Employees experienced gender based needs for work-related matters.
q Regulators guided by the existing policy and guideline has little
appreciation for gender based needs towards workers wellbeing.
q Culture-based division of labour is still significant at the workplace.
q Both parties have low level of understanding and assessment of the
consequences of gender needs toward work performance.
RESEARCHING THE GENDER RESPONSIVE OSH IN MALAYSIA:
ARE REGULATORS PERSPECTIVES ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE EMPLOYEES?
• If female LFPR is increased to
70%, Malaysian economy can
be boost by 2.9%.
• UNESCO also found that
restricting women of job
opportunities cost a country
between $42 to $46 billion a
year.
• Many of these women occupy the bottom 40% of income
earners & marginalised with minimal health coverage.
• Highest are in the prime age group (72% and 67.4%)
• M’sian women earns $0.42 for every $1 earned by men,
the lowest among ASEAN countries.
Fig 1. Principal Statistics of Labour Force, Malaysia.
Fig 2. Labour Force Participation Rate by Gender and Age Group, Malaysia.
Why gender matters?
Regulators
Employees
“.. In this work, you need to be
willing to run here and there
checking rooms and that can be
tiring for women..”
“Men has no problem wearing
safety shoes but for women they
usually use their normal shoes..
And then they are easily panic
unlike men..”
“Exposure for example you
mentioned about worker’s
exposure to chemicals right?
We take workers do not care
male or female..”
Regulators
Assessment of Risk/Hazards.
Employees acknowledged that
hazards and risks are gender
sensitive, VS Regulators
perspective of risk and hazards
are based on the job type.
Guideline. Employees and
Regulators assessed that job
performance appraisal should
not be gender sensitive.
Employees
“.. If they (women staffs) are
trained engineer, she would have
to carry the same burden as
well...only that when having to
carry heavy machines, we (men
staffs) help a bit..only a bit”
. “I remember that the IKS bus had one women
driver. A lady, an Indian lady. From a 100 drivers.
So the employer may think that it is only for one
person. The existing policy does not differentiate
so what ever we have. Not very special for you
lah. Same requirement if you drive, (um..) 10
trips a day lah. Fair lah because everyone is like
that. (aa) Even now we do find women who
drives.. (aa) taxi. But, not everyone wants to
drive one because there is 2 kind of risks. One,
driving a taxi being a lady. Taxi driving runs
through midnight. For women, this will be limited.
Maybe at night, she will not drive lah"Division of Labour. Employees
and Regulators held a strong
gendered division of labour –
culture-based.
“there is only one men working
in the office to help with
carrying heavy loads..
Eventually we (women staffs)
had to carry heavy loads”
“..if it is female, I do not see (aa) if there is
may be just one or two. But not … not
workers level (..aa..) if workers I rarely see
women workers”
(comment for work in the contruction
industry)
Regulators
Source of OSH Practices.
Employees and Regulators
adopted and source guideline
from outside and not tailored to
local needs and criteria.
“We adopt from the Western countries of
their document and this was made used
immediately without having to go through
employee assessment"
“we read from
somewhere…and not from
safety briefings at work..”
“What I realised in Japan is that they had this proper
thing that they do…cabling ermm that is not
everywhere where we could trip… like what we are
experiencing now where the cables are all tangled at
our feet. Imagine if your feet is wet, you could …well I
think it is dangerous .. Why did not we plan about it
when we move to a new building..”
“.. for women, having to carry
two or three projectors may be
too much for them.. they would
be easily felt tiredness and
patting...”
“Normally the women work in the
services. And, the risk in
services, of course still with risk.
But, the level of risk is not as
much as someone who is
working at for example
construction..”
References:
Guidelines on Gender in Occupational Safety and Health. (2004). Department of Occupational Safety and Health,
Ministry of Human Resource Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Keselamatan dan Kesihatan Malaysia.
Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development & United Nations Development Programme Project.
(2014). Study to Support the Development of National Policies and Programmes to Increase and Retain the
Participation of Women in the Malaysian Labour Force: Key Findings and Recommendations.
World Health Organization (WHO) (1999). Occupational health, ethically correct, economically sound. Geneva:
World Health Organization. Fact Sheet Nr 84.