A Comparative Study of Stress Level of Organized and Unorganized Domestic Workers from Pune City

Background: Domestic workers face many difficulties but there is a paucity of Indian work in this area.

Aim: To study the difference in the stress faced by domestic workers who are members of an organization and those who are not member of any organization.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 30 domestic workers from organization and 30 not from organization selected by random sampling with their informed consent. All the workers were interviewed individually, and socio-demographic questionnaire and depression, anxiety, stress 21 scale was filled up. The data was analyzed by chi square test and Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: The female domestic workers from organization were significantly older in age, earned significantly less and significantly more were widowed. There were no differences in education level, religion, number of family members, residence, habit of tobacco use and chronic illnesses. Almost half the domestic workers had high levels of anxiety, depression and stress. Age is negatively correlated with income. Anxiety is negatively correlated with size of family. Stress is positively correlated with anxiety and depression

Conclusion: Domestic workers not belonging to organization had significantly higher pay and higher stress levels compared to those belonging to organization.

To maintain the house almost every family perform certain chores daily, like cooking, cleaning used utensils, washing clothes, dusting the furniture, sweeping and wiping the floor, taking care of young children, care of sick or elderly persons and many more. In ‘Indian culture’ usually all these tasks are done by the ‘women’ in the family. Earlier days we were leaving in a joint family and the workload was distributed. In modern nucleus family both husband and wife needs to earn money for meeting the increased expenses and increasing aspirations. This puts extra burden on the lady of the house due to our male oriented culture. The lady has two options, either do all these tasks on own and get physically as well as mentally stressed or hire these services by paying the money. As a result of the transformation in class relations and breaking of the joint family, paid domestic work has become a necessity for a considerably large section of the urban population today. This created a new profession called “domestic worker”. A domestic worker (DW) is one who carries out the household chores like cleaning utensils, washing clothes, sweeping and cleaning the floor, cooking, look after small children, assist the employer in kitchen etc., on part time or full time basis, for one or more employer, for nominal wages. As per tradition, domestic work was considered to be an ‘unpaid work’ performed mainly by women in the family. The new segmentation of domestic work in the form of an outsourced activity has raised the importance of the occupation higher than ever before. Often, migrant workers or economically weaker sections of the society participate in it. The duties of DWs are tedious and less paying. Therefore, DWs are mostly women hailing from economically poor families. As there is no minimum wages fixed and as the minimum wage act does not cover the DWs, the employer are free to pay what they want to, irrespective of quantum and hours of work.

In the recent past the trend shows that all big cities of India have become centers to recruit poor women as domestic workers. Most of the middle class employed women, have shifted their household workload to the poor working women as their maids. Domestic work is one of the oldest and most important occupations for millions of women around the world. The term “domestic service” is particularly difficult to define since the duties of DWs are not well defined. Most DWs are not organized into trade unions and have no representative voice, their exact number in India is not known. Although, this is beginning to change but organizing DWs is not easy. The nature of the job as well as the worker-employer relationship makes it difficult to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with their employer. Female DWs are a neglected group among the unorganized sector. For decades they have been exploited and only in recent years NGO’s are taking up the cause of women domestic workers. Often it is observed that women DWs face several problems in their personal and occupational life. Despite long and irregular hours they have low pay and donot have job security. If they take leave for genuine reasons, they may lose their job. Some of them work more than two houses and due to excessive work and poor nutrition, they become sick. Being in the unorganized sector, labour laws do not apply to them. In the absence of labour unions, they have to survive on the generosity of the employers. In many developed countries of Europe and America there are laws and social security for DWs. Unlike these countries in transition economies such as India have no laws to fix their wages or hours of work; they have no basic rights, no amenities or social security, not even leave or a paid holiday as in any other jobs.

The employer family then appoints such woman on verbal agreement on:

·         Tasks to be done daily as well as some special tasks to be done periodically say once a week or month etc.

·         Daily Reporting time as well as minimum/maximum working time.

·         Monthly remuneration as well as ex-gratia payments.

·         Terms especially regarding informed or uninformed absence.

·         This work is considered as ‘Self-employment’

·         Generally she will not get any help from any family member neither she can ask for any helping hand.

Such woman then becomes the vital factor of the employer family. Both parties then depend on each other. Family depends on this woman to complete all the daily chores and the woman depends on family as source of income.

There are many research reports from other countries many of them focusing on problems faced by migrant domestic workers [1-5]. However, only few studies have been carried out in India [6-8]. In view of the paucity of Indian studies the present study was conducted to assess and compare problems, depression, anxiety, and stress faced by women domestic workers who are members of the organization and those who are not member of any organization.

This cross sectional, analytical study was carried out in Pune city. Mixed method was used for this study. The research proposal was approved by the institutional ethical committee. It was explained to the participants that the purpose of this survey is solely for educational research purpose and the collected information is confidential and not shared with any other person or institution. With this assurance written informed consent was obtained from all the interviewed women.

Sample

The sample consisted of 30 domestic workers who are members of the organization and 30 freelance domestic workers included by random sampling. Spoke personally with each of them, gathered the information from them and recorded in the questioner.

Tools for Data collection

Socio-Demographic data sheets and personal interviews

Interviewed each of the selected woman, informed the importance and objective of the study before filling up the socio-demographic sheet.

DASS 21

Filled up questioner based on DASS 21. The DASS is a 42 item self-report instrument designed to measure the related negative emotional states of depression, anxiety and tension/stress. Patient is interviewed with a list of 42 questions on a 4point rating scale (0-3) and there are specific questions designated for each. Internal consistency of the DASS sub-scales was high, with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.88, 0.82, and 0.90 for depression, anxiety, and stress sub-scales respectively. Cronbach’s alpha of total scale is 0.93 [9].

Brief information about the domestic workers organization

Maharashtra Asanghtit Kamgar Sanghatana, Pune established on 23^rd July 2019. Objective of this organization is to fight for the rights of these un-organized workers and ensuring that they get the benefits of government schemes and required legal support. About 7000 women household workers are member of this organization. Organization facilitates the detail information regarding all the government schemes and guides the members to get the benefits of these schemes. Organization celebrates various festivals like Makar Sankranti, Raksha Bandhan Diwali round the year. Founder and senior members of the organization contribute the expenses for these activities. These members also participate in the Alandi / Dehu to Pandharpur Palkhi Wari and promote the importance of cleanliness and hygiene. These women distribute snacks and other useful items to the participants of the ‘Wari’. They also build friendly relations with the Pune City Police by tying ‘Rakhi’ on occasion of ‘Raksha Bandhan’. Many of these women work as “Police Mitra” to support the police force. These women expressed their happiness of being member of the organization. They participate in various events and hence get opportunity to meet other members, make friendship, exchange views and thoughts. This enables them free communication with others. They also share the difficulties faced and get solutions from other’s experience.

All the subjects included in the study were explained that the purpose of this survey is solely for educational research purpose and the collected information is confidential and not shared with any other person or institution. With this assurance written informed consent was obtained from all the subjects. Initially the subjects were interviewed and the demographic data sheet was filled up. Thereafter the DASS 21 was administered individually to the subjects. All the scales were scored as per the test manual and data entered on excel sheet.

Statistical Analysis

Data was analyzed using SPSS 21(IBM, Chicago, USA). Frequency data was analyzed using chi square test. Ordinal data between the two groups of subjects was compared using Mann Whitney U test. Spearman’s rho was used for correlation. P< 0.05 was considered for statistical significance.

The study included 30 female domestic workers from organization and 30 free-lance domestic workers. The female domestic workers from organization were significantly older in age, earned significantly less and significantly more were widowed. There were no differences in education level, religion, number of family members, residence, habit of tobacco use and chronic illnesses (Table 1).

Nature of work is same whether the woman is a member of an organization or not. It depends on employers requirement. Most of them work in multiple houses. The hours of work are not fixed, as it depends on the jobs she has to do. This is same in case of organized or unorganized. Maintaining punctuality is most stressful to them.

Table 1: Demographic characteristics of organized and unorganized domestic workers.

Table 2: Depression Anxiety Stress Scale scores of domestic workers from organized and unorganized sector.

                Table 3: Severity of Depression Anxiety Stress Scale scores of domestic workers from organized and unorganized sector.

Table 4: Correlations of age, family members, monthly income, stress, anxiety and depression in domestic workers.

Table 5: Multiple regression analysis: Model Summary^b.

Table 6: Multiple regression analysis: ANOVA^a..

This means that the linear regression explains 59.4% of the variance in the data. The Durbin-Watson d = 1.588, is between the two critical values of 1.5 < d < 2.5. Therefore, one can assume that there is no first order linear auto-correlation in our multiple linear regression data. The linear regression’s F-test has the null hypothesis that the model explains zero variance in the dependent variable (in other words R² = 0). The F-test is highly significant; thus we can assume that the model explains a significant amount of the variance in stress in domestic workers (Table 6). Table 7 shows the multiple linear regression estimates including the intercept and the significance levels. The statistical significance of each of the independent variables can be seen from t and Sig columns. In the present study find that only anxiety and depression are significant. We can also see that depression has a higher impact than anxiety by comparing the standardized coefficients (beta = .527 versus beta = .343).The information in table 7 also allows us to check for multicollinearity in our multiple linear regression model. Tolerance should be > 0.1 (or VIF < 10) for all variables which is true in this case. 

Table 7: Multiple regression analysis: Coefficients^a.

To summarize, a multiple regression by enter method was run to predict stress in domestic workers from age, income, number of family members, anxiety and depression. These variables statistically significantly predicted stress, F(5, 54) = 15.805, p < .000, R2 = 0.594. Only depression and anxiety added statistically significantly to the prediction, p < .05.

Figure 1: Mean stress, anxiety and depression in organized and unorganized domestic workers.

The finding that the domestic workers in an urban metropolis belonged to poorer sections of society with limited or no educational attainments are in agreement with earlier studies [7]. In a large survey of DWs in Mumbai it was found that 25% worked in one house while the remaining worked in 2-4 houses [7]. This is in agreement with our findings. However the average remunerations in the present study were much higher than previous study in Mumbai which may be due to differences in location of study [7]. Unlike in many other countries where there are many foreign migrant workers in India most of the DWs are migrants from rural areas who have been displaced or migrated due to poverty. This finding is in agreement with earlier studies [7].

Domestic worker do the jobs like cleaning utensils, washing clothes, sweeping & cleaning the floor, cooking, and looking after small children etc. The nature of the work is same whether the woman is a member of an organization or not. This finding is in agreement with earlier studies [7]. Hours of the work are not fixed as it depends on what jobs she has to do. It is also depend on requirement of the employer. The employer can ask the domestic worker to do only cooking or only cleaning utensils and sweeping & cleaning the floor. It also depend on the domestic worker that how much time she takes to do the jobs. This is same for both the women, who are member of any organization or nonmember. Monthly payment of domestic worker depends on many factors. If the woman works at posh location/ elite area, she gets more payment than woman who works at other / middle class locality. The payment of the domestic worker is also depending on size of the family (number of members in family) and size of the flat. For e.g. when there is a big family, a big flat then charges of cleaning utensils and sweeping and cleaning the floor are more.

Figure 2: Distribution of depression, anxiety, stress in organized and unorganized domestic workers.

In the present study younger domestic workers who were not organized had higher income compared to older DW from organization. This finding is in contrast to the findings of a study from Chennai which reported significantly higher wages in areas where unions were active [6]. One reason for this is that most of the younger DWs work in multiple houses, with some of them working for up to four or five households. This involves much greater physical effort. The ability to work in multiple houses declines with age which may explain the lower incomes of older female DWs. None of the workers received regular increments and periodic increase in wages depend on negotiations with the employers. This finding is in agreement with the earlier study [6].

Increase in payment is also decided by both of them, the employer and the domestic worker, as there is no any fix rate of rise in payment. Some employers increase payment once in a year and some may increase, once in two years, it varies person to person. This finding is in agreement with earlier studies [7].

If anything goes wrong the employer can remove the domestic worker without notice as there is no written agreement. This applies to both members and non-members of organization. This is in agreement with previous studies [7,8]. Many times it happens that if any other employer offer them more payment they leave the current job. Hence there is no job security. But a woman who is member of the organization and faces any difficulty she can get support from other co-members of the organization. There is no rule for leave, but here in Pune domestic workers are aware that 2 leaves in a month and amount equal to their salary as a Diwali Bonus is their right. For more leave and other facilities, it depends on their relationship and mutual understanding with their employer. Here in Pune, bargaining power of domestic worker is good as they have more options. Terms and conditions are decided between both of them, the employer and the domestic worker, before accepting the job. This is same in the case of both member and non-member of the organization. In an earlier study it was found that majority (90%) never faced sexual harassment which is in agreement with absence of sexual harassment in the present study [9]. Many people have done research on different aspect of domestic worker’s life. Some researchers tried to study socio-economic conditions of domestic workers, where as some have focused on minimum wages, safe working conditions, health problems. Some researchers are on family related problems and harassment in work place. Some researcher studied on how domestic work has remained unorganized and unrecognized. Some examined status of domestic worker. It is observed thatsofarthe psychological side of the domestic worker has not been touched, so this study was aimed at examining problems, stress anxiety and depression level of domestic workers. The presence of high levels of depression, anxiety and stress in the DW points to the fact they were under psychological stress and would benefit from intervention.

As a result of prolonged working hours there is less time for sleep, rest and relaxation. Long and unstable working hours combined with low wages result in increased stress in DW as seen in our study. This is associated with increased utilization of health services. Among DW high workload and lack of control over the job are associated increased job stress and higher rates of unhealthy behavior like using tobacco and higher risk of chronic physical illnesses such as cardiovascular disease [10]. 

Female DW in Pune faces many types of challenges and stress. The DW who is members of organization has much less of stress compared to those who are not members of organization.

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