Institute for Health and Equity, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
Institute of Asian Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
BMC Public Health. 2020 Apr 19;20(1):524. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-08624-6.
Globally, two billion workers are employed informally but there is limited research on the relationship between informal work and health. Existing studies have focused on informality as an employment condition, with little emphasis on the diversity of physical and social contexts in which informal work takes place. The study considers the diversity of informal workplaces and explores the ways in which this diversity might influence health and well-being of two informal occupational groups in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar.
We conducted 21 field observations and 47 semi-structured interviews with street vendors and home-based garment workers based in Yangon, Myanmar. A constant comparative method was used to identify and compare how the physical characteristics of their informal workplaces affect their health for these two informal subgroups.
Although both street vendors and home-based garment workers work informally, their exposure to occupational health and income risks are specific to the physical features of their informal workplaces. Street vendors, who work in public spaces with minimal coverage, are more likely to experience the direct effects of outdoor pollution, inclement weather and ergonomic risks from lifting, carrying and transporting heavy merchandise while home-based garment workers, many of whom live and work in unsanitary housing and deprived neighborhoods, are more likely to experience pollution in or near their homes, and ergonomic risks from poor posture. Similarly, although both groups face safety challenges, street vendors face urban violence and abuse during their commute and at vending points whereas home-based garment workers felt unsafe in their home-based workplaces due to the presence of crime and violence in their neighborhoods.
While informal employment is universally characterized by lack of social protection, exposure to occupational health and income risks for subpopulations of informal workers is determined by the specific physical and social environments of their workplaces. Efforts to improve the health of informal workers should consider the contexts in which informal work takes place to develop tailored interventions for subpopulations of informal workers.
在全球范围内，有 20 亿工人从事非正式工作，但关于非正式工作与健康之间的关系的研究有限。现有研究侧重于将非正规性作为一种就业条件，而很少强调非正规工作所处的物理和社会环境的多样性。本研究考虑了非正规工作场所的多样性，并探讨了这种多样性可能如何影响缅甸前首都仰光的两个非正规职业群体的健康和福祉。
我们对仰光的街头小贩和家庭制衣工人进行了 21 次实地观察和 47 次半结构化访谈。采用恒比法比较分析了这两个非正规群体的非正式工作场所的物理特征如何影响他们的健康。
虽然街头小贩和家庭制衣工人都是非正式工作者，但他们面临的职业健康和收入风险与他们非正式工作场所的物理特征有关。在公共空间工作、几乎没有遮蔽物的街头小贩更容易受到户外污染、恶劣天气和搬运重物时的人体工程学风险的直接影响；而许多家庭制衣工人居住和工作在不卫生的住房和贫困社区，他们更有可能在家中或附近受到污染和不良姿势造成的人体工程学风险。同样，虽然这两个群体都面临安全挑战，但街头小贩在上下班和贩卖点会遭遇城市暴力和虐待，而家庭制衣工人则因为邻里犯罪和暴力而感到在家工作场所不安全。
虽然非正式就业普遍缺乏社会保护，但非正式工人亚群体面临的职业健康和收入风险取决于其工作场所的具体物理和社会环境。为了改善非正式工人的健康，应该考虑非正式工作发生的背景，为非正式工人的亚群体制定有针对性的干预措施。
