A Policy Analysis of the Problem of the Reproductive Health of Women in the Workplace

Abstract

Many occupations in which women comprise the majority of the workforce involve exposure to biological physical and chemical hazards. Potential reproductive effects of work-related substances include impaired reproductive capacity mutagenesis teratogenesis and transplacental carcinogenesis. However female-dominated occupations tend to be only minimally regulated by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the corporate response to the issue of reproductive and fetal health has been to institute "protective discrimination policies" such as the demotion or exclusion of women of childbearing age from certain jobs. This article rates the effectiveness of alternate policy responses to increase womens occupational health and safety through use of a series of analysis criteria: equity efficiency preference satisfaction right to privacy avoidance of stigma and unintended consequences. Policy options include the following: 1) do nothing 2) leave current policies intact while supporting a research program to document the health consequences of specific occupational risks to womens reproductive health 3) restrict women for who pregnancy is not ruled out from occupations or work areas known or suspected to be hazardous 4) improve working conditions for all women and 5) improve working conditions for all workers. Policy analysis suggests the working conditions of all workers should be improved. This alternative reduces inequity eliminates stigma maintains privacy and honors preferences. Implementation of this policy would be expensive requiring an increase in knowledge of the effects of industrial substances on female and male reproductive health expansion of the technical capacity to control occupational hazards and an increase in the resources of programs that monitor and regulate occupational health. However this approach is in accord with growing concern that workers should not have to compromise their health to keep their jobs.