Quality of Life and Associated Determinants among Female Tea Garden Workers of Indigenous Communities in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, India: A Cross- Sectional Mixed Methods

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the self-perceived quality of life (QOL) using World Health Organization quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) instrument and associated controlling factors among socio-economically marginalized tribal female tea garden (TG) workers. A cross-sectional mixed-method research design involving both quantitative and qualitative techniques was employed on 378 study samples (18–60 years tribal female TG workers) between February and May 2022 across 10 TGs of Sub-Himalayan north Bengal, India. For the study, both summary statistics (mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and percentage distribution) and inferential statistics (Welch’s ANOVA, independent t-test, paired t-test and multivariate regression) were used to understand the dynamics of QOL and respondents narratives were facilitated to investigate the corresponding phenomenal scenario. Results: Findings indicate the QOL of the tribal female workers variably associated with different socioeconomic conditions and subjective well-being. The findings recommend that female tribal TG workers were perceived to have good ‘overall quality of life’ with a response rate of 33.1%, whereas more than 20% of participants respond that they were poor QOL on ‘overall quality of life’ and ‘general health’ items. The findings show lower summary statistics for most items in the environmental domain. Additionally, the study constructs a multivariate model that identifies several factors including socio-economy, neighbourhood, social relation, and others were significantly control the QOL of the study subjects. These outcomes may have important implications for future studies employing WHOQOL-BREF or similar instruments on different communities with distinctive sociocultural characteristics.