A Review over the Ergonomic Assessment of the Women in Bead Works for a Healthy and Productive Work-style

Most of the families of a village Mangali in Hisar block of Haryana are involved in production of wooden beads for decades. The production process is a joint effort made by both male and female members of the family. However the works done by male members start from procurement of wood to making of beads till their marketing whereas women work to string the beads for whole days and give them finishing looks for selling in not more than 50-100 rupees per day that too only if work is available in abundance. Even the male members only get a limited selling price as all the benefits are secured by the middlemen. The women also face physiological hazards and musculoskeletal discomforts for doing all the works sitting on floor in a bending posture. The plight of the women is so high that even after the long day seasonal field works, they are sitting over floors in a bent posture which is causing them discomforts over the body for next many days. The activities performed by the women which are related to beads are numerous in nature like jewellery, crafts, etc, and hence the postures. Squatting and cross legged are the major postures that are observed among the women in forward-bent condition and which cause them further musculoskeletal disorders. A workstation having the facilities regarding back support, eye-level works, wrist support, storage and light requirements is suggested. The multipurpose workstation can help the women to healthy work not for the bead works only but also for other housing chores to speed the activities and enhance the productivity.