Health Status of Spinning Women Workers

The economic status of women is now accepted as an indicator of a societys stage of development. Textile industry is one of the sectors which furnish semiskilled jobs to women population in our country. Women workers unlike the majority in the informal sector have been exposed to rigorous work, discipline, fixed working hours, specific production norms etc. Inspite of the improvement in textile technology the work environment has not changed much. Research reports highlighted that women working in textile industry suffer from musculoskeletal aches, respiratory problems and anaemia etc. , Considering this, an attempt has been made to assess the health status of textile women workers. The investigation was carried out in the urban areas of Tirupur and Erode Districts of Tamilnadu. Totally 150 adult women performing varied textile tasks and aged between 20 to 60 years were identified randomly from spinning (n=150) (carding, blowing and spinners sections) industries. . About 18 per cent of spinners respectively showed symptoms for protein calorie malnutrition and 68 per cent of workers from spinning industries respectively suffer from anaemia. Respiratory symptoms classified under mild and moderate degree were prevalent among less than 50 per cent of textile women workers. Similarly, 20-40 per cent of them had symptoms for musculoskeletal aches many of them suffered from backache, joint pains, headache and general tiredness.