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PubMedDate not supplied

Age-related changes in perceptual and psychomotor performance: implications for engineering design.

Increased age is associated with declines in perceptual and psychomotor performance. We review several surveys of health and disability that provide functional descriptions on population trends in vision, hearing, fitness, mobility, and agility that complement laboratory studies of perceptual threshold functions. Women report and exhibit significantly greater disability than men (the exceptions being disabilities associated with hearing and flexibility), with the disability progression accelerating with age. For the growing proportion of older adults in the labor force, visual improvements can be achieved through improved lighting, increased size of visual detail, and glare avoidance. For hearing, restricting the frequency of sounds to the 1000- to 2000-Hz range, minimizing background noise, and eliminating reverberation seem prudent. For the retired population, emphasis should be placed on minimizing disability by promoting greater use of assistive devices and environmental redesign. Future laboratory studies of perceptual and psychomotor functions should attempt to sample more representatively and target underrepresented groups of older adults. New field studies are needed to bridge the gap between survey self-reports and laboratory studies and to determine the cost and benefits of redesign.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Age and physical work capacity.

Aging is associated with a progressive decrement in various components of physical work capacity, including aerobic power and capacity, muscular strength and endurance, and the tolerance of thermal stress. A part of the functional loss can be countered by regular physical activity, control of body mass, and avoidance of cigarette smoking. Nevertheless, athletes who continue to train regularly still show a substantial aging of both physiological function and competitive performance, reflecting a deterioration of cardiac pump function, a decrease of muscle strength, and a progressive impairment of heat tolerance. These various changes are of concern to the occupational physician, because of the rising average age of the labor force. In theory, an over-taxing of the heart and skeletal muscles might be thought to lead to a decrease of productivity, manifestations of worker fatigue such as absenteeism, accidents, and industrial disputes, and an increased susceptibility to musculoskeletal injuries, heart attacks, and strokes. However, in practice, the productivity, health, and safety of the older worker pose relatively few problems. Reasons for this paradox are discussed, and it is stressed that in general there is no longer need to push workers to their physical limits because of automation-related changes in methods of production.

Aging↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Man works from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done: insights on research and policy.

Gender equity and equality in health and human development are key national and international goals. To achieve these goals, the androcentric definition of work needs to be addressed. The current definition is driven by the globalized capitalistic model, which equates "work" with generating income or the production of goods. Indeed, employment in the formal labor force has become the de facto definition of work. Women's work, unpaid and reflecting the gendered role of caring for others, does not fit the economic mold and is, therefore, devalued. The health and social welfare sectors rely heavily on the unremunerated work of women to reduce their budgets, ignoring the unequal burden of care shouldered by women worldwide. Research on women's health has also been hampered by the dichotomous nature of work as employment. Changing the definition of work to value explicitly women's work could significantly impact social, health, and research policies.

Female↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Work, marital status, and heart disease.

Longitudinal data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Survey and its follow-up were used to analyze the effects of marriage and work roles and changes in these roles on the incidence of coronary heart conditions in a sample of 3,097 middle-aged women. Education, age, family income, race, and number of children were included as covariates. The data indicated that women who became unmarried, younger women, and better educated women were at relatively low risk, whereas women who left the labor force and women who were homemakers were at relatively high risk for the conditions. Additional analyses were done on employed women. These findings support the "well-worker effect" but cast doubt on the belief that marriage is always beneficial to health.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The new woman: health-promoting and health-damaging behaviors.

Compared with their mothers, contemporary women are better educated, live alone more of their adult lives, and participate in the labor force more consistently throughout their lives. Most studies of the New Woman have focused on the effects of the configuration of her roles on her health and health-related behavior. Few have considered both the influence of women's roles and the broader context of their lives on their health. Moreover, investigators have devoted little attention to the health behavior patterns of the New Woman, despite the demonstrable impact of health-related behaviors on mortality and morbidity. The present study was designed to test models relating women's roles, gender role norms, social demands and resources, and health-promoting and -damaging behaviors. Women who resided in middle-income and racially mixed neighborhoods (N = 659) were interviewed in their homes. The women were a mean age of 32.7 years and had an educational level of 14.2 years. Approximately 57% were married or partnered, and 76% reported some level of employment outside the home. Women who had fewer life stressors and were better educated performed more health-promoting behaviors. Women who experienced more stressors, were less well educated, had more contemporary attitudes toward women, were not partnered, or experienced depressed mood engaged in more health-damaging behaviors. These results underscore the importance of considering women's social context in health promotion efforts and as a deterrent to health-damaging behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Stresses and rewards experienced by employed mothers.

As an increasing percentage of mothers of preschool children enter the labor force, there is a need for a better understanding of the experience of employment and its impact on women and their families. In the present study, employed women enacting multiple roles were asked to describe their perceptions of the stresses and rewards of the experience. One hundred eighteen employed mothers of preschool children were interviewed. The major stresses that emerged from the responses included lack of time, child-related problems, and maternal guilt. Rewarding aspects included personal benefits, financial rewards, and improved family life. Implications for families, health practitioners, and researchers are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Auxiliary nurses in Mexico: impact of multiple roles on their health.

As more women worldwide enter the labor force, debate has been generated over how this additional work role influences women's health. In this study, we explored the work, maternal, and spousal roles of 59 auxiliary nurses in two university-affiliated Mexican hospitals. Participants completed questionnaires that included demographics, a women's roles interview protocol, a self-rating of health status, and the Cornell Medical Index (CMI). No significant correlation was found between the perception of their health status and the number of roles, amount of role involvement, or their perceived levels of stress and satisfaction in any of their three roles. Work stress was significantly correlated with the number of physical symptoms (r = .30, p < .05), longer periods of standing (r = .31, p < .05), more muscle strain (r = .53, p < .01), eye problems (r = .43, p < .01), frequent changes in environmental temperature (r = .30, p < .05), and perceptions of economic inadequacy (r = .37, p < .01). Years of education was not related to any health measure or degree of stress or satisfaction in any of the roles. The greater the degree of role integration, that is, the greater the sum of satisfactions minus stresses of each role, the fewer the physical symptoms (r = .48, p < .05) and the fewer total symptoms (r = .43, p < .05) reported on the CMI. Those with more spousal stress reported more work-related muscle strain (r = .35, p < .05), and working mothers with three or more children tended to perceive themselves as less healthy (r = .75, p < .01). Thus, analyzing the interrelationship of women's multiple roles is a better predictor of health than examining specific role stresses in isolation.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Lactation and the labor market: breastfeeding, labor market changes, and public policy in the United States.

Public health authorities in the United States actively promote breast-feeding, with target goals for increased beast-feeding rates by the year 2000. In recent decades, however, there has been an increase in the number of American mothers with infants who are in the labor market. Drawing together research examining the intersection of breast-feeding and women's involvement in paid employment, as well as various labor market analyses, this study explores how national recommendations advocating increased breast-feeding among new mothers in paid work are reconciled with economic pressures to return to the labor force in the early postpartum period. This analysis highlights those employment-related factors that constrain the practice of breast-feeding, thereby impeding "choice" over infant feeding method for many mothers. Finally, there is an attempt to explore various employer and public policies and strategies potentially supportive of breast-feeding among mothers in paid employment.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Drinking Cultures and the Position of Women in Nine European Countries.

Nine European countries involved in the Biomed Project "Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol Problems Among Women in European Countries" are described in relation to sociodemographic characteristics and drinking patterns. The populations of the nine countries, especially women, have become much older during the period 1950-1995. Also, women tend to have fewer children, and at an older age, so that the percentage of the younger age groups is decreasing. If we connect this to the fact that women now are more a part of the labor force than before, we might infer that the observed decrease in gender difference in alcohol use is to be explained in relation to economic factors. In terms of drinking patterns, a broad division can be made between two wide regions: (a) the northern dry area, where beer is the leading beverage, consumed on weekends and outside mealtimes; and (b) the southern, or Mediterranean, wet area, where wine is the main beverage, usually drunk at meals. However, the dispersion in alcohol consumption found among the study countries in 1961 declined considerably by 1997. In this respect, European countries are getting more similar, so that we may consider this phenomenon a "convergence" of alcohol drinking in Europe. More generally, changes from a more traditional drinking pattern to a novel one from another country may be due to several factors, one of which is the increasing relevance of women in the drinking context. On the treatment side, such a relevance is nowadays visible through the better availability of both health services and nonstatutory organizations to take care of women affected with alcohol-related problems.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1998

Efficiency wages, unemployment and international factor movements.

"This paper examines the implications of unemployment resulting from efficiency wages for international factor movements in a standard Heckscher-Ohlin model where the relative size of the endowments of skilled and unskilled workers and the efficiency wage induced unemployment level in the unskilled labour market are simultaneously determined given the population, supply of capital and its distribution in the economy.... It is shown that the optimum labour inflow in the market with domestic distortion and the optimum capital inflow are always positive because they reduce the severity of distortion by raising employment and income for the residents. The income and employment of foreigners also increase. Under this situation the optimum labour or capital outflow on the other hand is always zero. These conclusions directly contradict the result obtained for international factor movements in the presence of exogenously determined unemployment."

Americas↗
PubMed1997

Fertility and contraception in Europe: the case of low fertility in southern Europe.

Demographic trends in Europe can be summarized in terms of a declining proportion of its population in the world total, low fertility, and a slow population growth. Fertility in Western Europe was already below the replacement level in 1970-75 and has remained low. Fertility has substantially declined in Eastern and Southern Europe, with Italy and Spain recording one of the lowest levels (1.2 children per woman) in 1994. Some explanations of the dramatic fertility decline in Southern Europe are: (1) The emancipation of women and their increased participation in the labor force; (2) Economic aspects such as costs for child care and education; and (3) The couple's motivation for low fertility because of the expanded choices for travel and leisure and their concerns for improving their standard of living. Social pressures on childbearing outside marriage remain quite strong; cohabitation and extramarital births is Southern Europe are not as prevalent as in other European regions and there is a trend toward delaying the birth of the first child rather than foregoing childbearing.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Controlling heat stress - administrative versus physical control.

The collective effectiveness of several heat stress prevention measures has been evaluated. The relative merits of both physical and administrative controls and their interrelationships have been explored. It is concluded that a combination of physical and administrative control is more effective than any single physical or administrative control in managing heat stress. The use of the preventive measures discussed provided protection to a labor force of 120 employees working approximately 2.4 million man-hours over a six-year period where temperatures average 26.6 degrees C Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) during the nonsummer months and 34.4 degrees C WBGT during the summer months. Only three documented cases of heat stress were encountered during this period.

Hot Temperature↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Ecological determinants of divorce: a structural approach to the explanation of Japanese divorce.

This paper examines the ecological determinants of contemporary Japanese divorce rates on the prefectural level. LISREL and computer-generated graphics are the analytic methods used. The aggregate level of analysis demands the use of the ecological model which posits that demographic changes, economic activities, migration patterns, and the level of urbanization are significant predictors of divorce rate. Our analysis demonstrates that sex ratio, female labor force participation, female in-migration patterns, population increase, and net household income all play a significant role in affecting the divorce rate. Our findings also confirm the well-supported hypothesis that both population density and modernization positively influence modern Japan's divorce rates. The residual analysis also points out that in order to account for the large proportion of the unexplained variance of Japanese divorce, behavioral-related variables and island- or prefecture-specific dimensions need to be included in the ecological model of divorce.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Effect of peers on employment and implications for drug treatment.

We examined the effect peers have on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients' employment behavior. Nondrug using and chronic drug using TANF recipients (n=433) participating in a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse were asked how many of the people they regularly spent time with over the past 4 months had jobs and how many of them encouraged the individual to look for work. Results of a path analysis showed that age, education, and chronic drug use were significantly related to the nature of peer relationships. A significant and positive association between the number of peers that worked and the number of hours worked in the following 4 months was observed. Examining the effect of peers on labor force participation by TANF recipients is necessary to assist recipients in securing and maintaining employment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Implementation of 12-hour shifts in a Brazilian petrochemical plant: impact on sleep and alertness.

A recent worldwide trend in chemical and petrochemical industries is to extend the duration of shifts. Optimization of the labor force to reduce costs is one reason to increase the length of working time in a shift. Implementation of 12h shifts is a controversial decision for managers and scientists. Literature reviews show alertness is lower during the nighttime hours, and sleep duration is reduced and worse during the daytime. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts of 12h shifts on alertness and sleep. To evaluate the duration and quality of sleep and alertness during work, 22 male shift workers on a continuous rotating schedule at a petrochemical plant completed activity logs and estimated alertness using analog 10-cm scales for 30 consecutive days, three times (at 2h, 6h, and 10h of the shift) every work shift. Statistical tests (analysis of variance [ANOVA] and Tukey) were performed to detect differences between workdays and off days. The shift schedule was 2 days/3 nights/4 off days, followed by 3 days/2 nights/5 off days, followed by 2 days/2 nights/5 off days. Sleep duration varied significantly (p < .001) among the work shifts and off days. Comparing work nights, the shortest mean sleep occurred after the second night (mean = 311.4 minutes, SD = 101.7 minutes), followed by the third night (mean = 335.3 minutes, SD = 151.2 minutes). All but one shift (sleep after the first work night) were significantly different from sleep after the first 2 workdays (p < .002). Tukey tests showed no significant differences in sleep quality between workdays and nights, with the exception of sleep after the third day compared to sleep after night shifts. However, significant differences were detected between off days and work nights (p < .01). ANOVA analysis showed borderline differences among perceived alertness during day shifts (p = .073) and significant differences among the hours of the shifts (p = .0005), especially when comparing the 2nd hour of the first day with the 10th hour of all the day shifts. There were no significant differences in perceived alertness during night work among the first, second, and third nights (p = .573), but there were significant differences comparing the times (2nd, 6th, 10th hour) of the night shifts (p < .001). The evaluation of sleep (duration and quality) and level of alertness have been extensively used in the literature as indicators of possible performance decrements at work. The results of this study show poorer sleep after and significantly decreased alertness during night work. Shifts of 12h are usually implemented for technical and economic reasons. These results point out the necessity of a careful trade-off between the financial and technical gains longer shifts might bring and the possible losses due to incidents or accidents from performance decrements during work.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Women's employment status and mortality: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study.

BACKGROUND: As women's labor force participation in the United States has increased over the past decades, there has been an interest in the potential health effects of employment. To date, however, research findings have been contradictory. METHODS: Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between employment status and mortality among 7361 middle-aged African American and white women who participated in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Women were classified as employed or homemakers at the baseline examination (1987-1989) and were followed for approximately 11 years. Proportional hazards regression was used to estimate unadjusted and adjusted hazard ratios. RESULTS: After adjusting for sociodemographic factors and selected risk factors for mortality, employed women had a lower risk of mortality than homemakers (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.49, 0.86). This decreased risk of mortality persisted in additional analyses that excluded those who died within the first 2 years of follow-up or, alternatively, those with a history of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, or a perception of fair or poor health at baseline. In cause of death-specific analyses, the mortality advantage among employed women persisted for circulatory system-related deaths; however, the association for cancer-related deaths was weaker, and the CI included one. CONCLUSIONS: As the association between employment status and mortality was not explained by known risk factors for mortality, additional research is needed to identify other potential factors that may help to explain this relationship.

Black or African American↗