Indian Workers Research Articles

Burnout experience among healthcare workers post third COVID-19 wave in India; findings of a cross-sectional study

Background The pandemic exacerbated burnout experienced by healthcare personnel, whose mental health had long been a public health concern before COVID-19. This study used the Copenhagen burnout inventory (CBI) tool to assess burnout and identify predictors among Indian healthcare workers managing COVID-19. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from June to December 2022, after the third pandemic wave. A web-based, fillable Google form was used to recruit COVID-19 management professionals from multiple Jaipur district hospitals. Healthcare professionals provided socio-demographic, work-related, and CBI scores. Multiple linear regression was used to control for model covariant independent variables. Results We evaluated the responses of a total of 578 participants with a mean age of 36.59 ± 9.1 years. Based on the CBI cut-off score of 50, 68.1% reported burnout. A total of 67.5%, 56.4%, and 48.6% of healthcare workers reported work-related, personal, and patient-related burnout, respectively. High burnout scores were significantly associated with the nursing profession (β = 7.89, 95% CI; 3.66, 12.11, p < 0.0001). The p-value indicates the probability of observing the data if the null hypothesis is true, and the confidence interval shows the range within which we can be 95% confident that the true effect lies. An independent relationship exists between male gender and higher personal-related burnout scores (β = 4.45, 95% CI 1.9–6.9). Conclusion This study identified key indicators that need further emphasis and the need for organizational and individual-level burnout monitoring in healthcare delivery sectors. Health workers continue to experience burnout due to a combination of personal, professional, and patient-related factors. This underscores the need for targeted organizational and individual interventions. The findings also suggest that the CBI tool could identify healthcare worker burnout risk groups.

The Asian American Contract: On Useful Labor and Social Reproduction in Severance and Minari

This article examines the central role that the work contract plays in the production and reproduction of Asian diasporic worlds. In light of the history of Asian indentured contract labor in the Americas, the article proposes that the “Asian American contract” emerges as an affirmation of the exchange of useful labor for a sense of belonging and world for the Asian American subject—even when this exchange comes at the expense of life. Through readings of Ling Ma’s novel Severance (2018) and director Lee Isaac Chung’s film Minari (2020), the article demonstrates how the contract ultimately transforms Asian Americans’ reproductive labor—their childbearing and child-rearing—into their social reproduction as a racialized class of useful, compliant workers.

Prevalence of tuberculosis among healthcare workers in India: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Tuberculosis (TB) poses a significant occupational hazard for healthcare workers (HCWs) in India, a country bearing a substantial portion of the global TB burden. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to determine the prevalence of TB among HCWs in India. Analyzing ten studies up to 2024, we found a pooled prevalence of 2391.6 cases per 100,000 individuals, underscoring the critical occupational risk. Factors contributing to this high prevalence include inadequate ventilation, insufficient personal protective equipment, and frequent exposure to multidrug-resistant TB strains. Our findings emphasize the urgent need for stringent infection control measures, routine TB screening, and comprehensive educational programs. Policy recommendations include developing national TB screening guidelines and improving healthcare infrastructure. Protecting HCWs is crucial to achieving India's goal of TB elimination by 2025.

Online training in trauma-informed intervention and care for mental health workers in India during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed method evaluation study

PurposeThis paper aims to describe a response to the needs of mental health workers (MHWs) in India during COVID-19 pandemic, through an online training program on trauma-informed intervention and care.Design/methodology/approachA four-module online training program was developed. Two modules were aimed to bridge the knowledge gap on trauma for MHWs, so that they could effectively address the associated symptoms of fear and grief. The other two modules aimed to support MHWs’ self-care and create supportive connections among colleagues. In this mixed method evaluation study, needs expressed before the training and lessons derived from the training were collected through questionnaires, focus group discussion and interviews.FindingsOf the 3,168 MHWs who registered for the training, 534 completed the pre-questionnaire. Of the 125 post-questionnaire records, 38 had watched all four modules. A great need for learning to work with grief and manage the increased workload without burnout was observed. Post-training gains included skills for working with fear and grief, which increased the confidence of MHWs. The importance of self-care was an eye-opener for many.Social implicationsThis study indicates a way to equip MHWs to address the trauma that will continue to live in people in the aftermath of crises.Originality/valueThis study examined the challenges MHWs in India faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing a knowledge gap on dealing with this level of trauma. It can contribute to the knowledge on how to support MHWs in such crises.

Empire and indentured labour: the Immigration Department, 1842–1920

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of the British Empire's Immigration Department, which was a key component of the colonial administration that helped the empire in the move from slavery to Indian indenture. It also looks at the department's role in the imperial networks that connected London with Calcutta, and the labour-importing colonies. To distinguish indenture from slavery, which was the subject of much controversy among English intellectuals, the colonial empire implemented a number of procedures, the most significant of which was the formation of the Immigration Department. While this study delves deep into the overall working of the Immigration Department, it also explores the various interventions of the Immigration Department as a protector in the matters of indentured labourers.

Time Won’t Give Me Time: Intersections of Racialized and Gendered Organization of Work in Tech

Abstract Drawing on theories of gendered and racialized organizations and research on racialization and citizenship, we weave together an intersectional understanding of gendered racial meaning making in tech work. We focus on workers’ control over time, an important point of overlap between gendered and racialized organizations theories. Based on interviews with 85 tech workers who are either U.S. workers or Indian men in the United States with temporary non-immigrant visas (primarily H-1B visas), we examine the organization of work for tech workers with and without visa restrictions, focusing on control over time. We find that permanent U.S. engineers, mostly men, have considerably more control than Indian temporary workers, who have virtually none. U.S. managers have the most control, but because of the perception that they trade schedule control for less technical work, this work is feminized and devalued among engineers. Together, these conditions help to create a lower status, feminized managerial track and lower status, racialized but masculine technical track drafting the Indian workers in racially subordinated masculinity while preserving agency over time and status for technical workers with permanent legal status. These findings allow us to offer an intersectionally grounded revision of the abstract ideal worker concept.

The Role of Human Capital Components in Gender Wage Inequality in India

This study investigates the gender wage gap in the Indian labour market by analysing a range of human capital components, including education, work experience, cognitive and technical skills and occupational choices, using data from the India Human Development Survey 2011–2012. We employ the recentred influence functions (RIF) regression and Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (FFL) decomposition techniques. The results from the RIF regression analysis underscore the significant role of education, work experience, skills and occupation in wage inequality. While education and English language proficiency lead to widening wage inequality for both men and women, the effects are much larger for the latter. Next, the FFL decomposition unveils a positive gender wage gap, indicating potential favourable returns for women’s qualifications and skills, yet it exposes a concerning wage structure effect suggesting women are often employed in lower-paying jobs. These results suggest that enhancing education and skills among women can be important tools in reducing gender wage inequality. JEL codes: E24, J24, J16

Cultivating Pacific Cocoa: Chinese Plantation Labor in Colonial Era Samoa and Vanuatu

Abstract From the 1890s to the 1930s the cocoa plantations of the southwest Pacific relied on Pacific Islander and Asian indentured labor from China and Vietnam. In Samoa and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) white planters lobbied colonial administrations for permission to introduce Chinese under contract as indentured labor, a coercive and controversial labor system. This article points to the role of transimperial economic competition in encouraging the use of indentured labor, traversing German, French, and British colonial administrations in the Pacific. Cocoa cultivation, white planters argued, required more regular attention compared with sugar or copra, and Chinese indentured workers were deemed the most suitable to meet these requirements. Australian, New Zealand and British administrators in the Pacific, who were keenly aware of ongoing French indenture practices, lobbied to introduce and retain indentured labor. Without the perceived competitive edge of indentured labor, cocoa cultivation was considered unlikely to prosper. It was not until the mid-1930s that recruitment of Chinese indentured labor ended. It came at a time of international and Chinese calls for abolition of coerced labor but was also driven by anti-immigration and pro-white nationalist sentiments. Even after recruitment ceased, the New Zealand administration in Samoa obliged Chinese workers to remain on the cocoa plantations. While the French did repatriate Chinese recruits, they retained Vietnamese workers. Only after 1945 were indentured workers freed from the obligation to cultivate cocoa, and finally permitted to abandon the plantations.

Navigating the Labyrinth of Precarity: The Case of Women Domestic Workers in India

Navigating the Labyrinth of Precarity: The Case of Women Domestic Workers in India

Assessment of depression, anxiety, stress, alcohol dependence, and resilience in migrant workers during COVID-19 crisis

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant workers in India have gone through many hardships. After the lockdown, many construction sites, factories, and workplaces shut down, and innumerable migrant workers faced a loss of income, shortage of food, and uncertain future. This massive change in their living conditions made them vulnerable to psychological problems. Aim: To screen for depression, anxiety, stress, alcohol dependence, and resilience in migrant workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Materials and Methods: Migrant workers at seven camps in the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra, were surveyed with the help of the Depression Anxiety Stress (DASS-21) Scale to assess depression, anxiety, and stress levels, AUDIT C for assessing alcohol use disorders, and Connor–Davidson resilience scale short form (CD RISC) for assessing resilience. Results: A total of 1053 migrant workers were surveyed. It showed that 57.54% of workers had depressive symptoms, 64.96% had anxiety symptoms, and 39.32% had subjective stress. Female migrant workers had more severe depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms as compared to males while male workers were more at risk of alcohol use disorder as compared to females. Migrants without family had more symptoms of severe depression and alcohol use disorder as compared to those with family. Regression analysis showed that levels of anxiety were independently associated with female gender, unmarried status, stress, depression, and alcohol use disorder while resilience negatively predicted anxiety in these migrant workers. Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant workers were at risk of depression, anxiety, stress, and alcohol use disorder. Females and migrants without families came out to be more vulnerable to these psychological problems. Hence during the pandemic situation, identifying this vulnerable population and special preventive or therapeutic programs for them can be of crucial importance.

‘You are gold’: the role of workwear jewelry advertisements in ‘Disempowering’ urban working women in India

ABSTRACT From 2011 onward, jewelry advertisements in India have witnessed a surge in multimedia campaigns of branded work wear gold and diamond jewelry. These commercials target the urban Indian working woman with an affinity for fine, workwear jewelry marketed as versatile, cool and chic. This study takes up discourse analysis of 23 select commercials released on television channels and over the top (OTT) platforms between 2017 and 2022 to unravel the many contesting and contradictory displays of women’s apparently empowered personas. In doing so, it also seeks to unravel the rather complicated connections between the jewelry business and the gendered cultural habitus of working women in contemporary urban India. Most women depicted in the advertisements possess high economic and cultural capital and are seen as ‘doing urbanity’ in choosing workwear jewelry. Ironically though these possessors of refined habitus are perfectly adjusted in performing traditional gendered roles and relegating their own self-hoods, a much saleable business trope for advertisers. Such portrayals of urban Indian working women subtly and paradoxically dovetail in valorizing ideals of traditional femininity. This paper further argues that jewelry advertisements become sites where the projection of the ‘urban Indian working woman’ becomes a conduit for legitimizing a more mutated and reflexive patriarchy.

Conceptualizing ‘Liberated Africans’ and Slave Trade Abolition: Government Schemes to Indenture Enslaved People Captured from Slavery, 1800–1920

Abstract A new survey of ‘Liberated Africans’ exposes how global calculations of involuntary African indentured labour after 1800 have been significantly underestimated. This analysis of the suppression of the slave trade draws upon a publicly accessible database and digital archive at LiberatedAfricans.org. A quantitative, spatial and chronological visualization of abolition in action, the website memorializes lived experiences of the victims of abolition on micro and macro levels. Results show that there were more than 700,000 individuals captured from the slave trade, ‘liberated’, and forced into periods of indenture according to anti-slave-trade law. This article consolidates the historiography to challenge dominant narratives that British-led efforts were the most voluminous, instead revealing a more complex and multifaceted global phenomenon involving the mass registration of upwards of 200,000 people by name. Digital humanities methodologies facilitate tracking migratory patterns of ‘Liberated Africans’ in diaspora, that is from African regions of departure through documented capture locations in slave trade blockades, judicial processes resulting in ‘liberation’, and settlements of indenture often involving secondary migrations. With the participation of at least eighteen different nations, key findings determine that Portugal and France contributed to upwards of 370,000 ‘Liberated Africans’, surpassing Britain which supplied about a third of global estimates.

Achieving sustainable development goals for mental health and gender equality through work-life balance and emotional intelligence

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between work-life balance and the mental health of Indian managers and to explore the moderating role of emotional intelligence (EI) and gender. Design/methodology/approach Work-life balance scale (Hayman 2005), Mental Health Inventory (Viet and Ware, 1983) and EI scale (Wong and Law, 2002) were administered to 202 (102 males and 100 females) Indian managers. Based on the Conservation of Resource theory, a theoretical model has been designed and hypotheses were tested by descriptive, correlation and moderation analysis. Findings The results of this study indicated that work-life balance is positively correlated with psychological well-being and mental health, while negatively correlated with the psychological distress of managers. EI has emerged as a potential moderator that positively influences the relationship between work-life balance and the mental health of managers. At the same time, gender did not show any moderating effect. Research limitations/implications This research has theoretical, practical as well as social implications. Practical implications This study is aligned with SDG 3 and SDG 5 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2023. This paper provides valuable inputs in promoting mental health at the workplace and formulating gender-neutral work-life balance policies and programs in Indian organizations. Social implications This study is aligned with SDG 3 (Health and well-being) and SDG 5 (Gender equality) of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2023. Originality/value This study is an empirical research paper backed by a sound theoretical framework, which addresses the work-life balance and mental health issues of managers and highlights the positive role of EI in managing their personal and professional lives in a low gender-egalitarian Indian work–family culture.

Surveillance medicine 2.0: digital monitoring of community health workers in India

This paper examines a digital platform used in the primary health sector in a state in Eastern India. Within a ‘regime of tactility,’ it is supposed to redefine the state’s presence in rural areas, not only by attending to patients but also by screening the population and establishing health databases. While the health workers who operate the digital platform represent the state in ‘the peripheries,’ the state itself exhibits mistrust towards them and monitors their performance through the platform. Based on long-term ethnographic research, the manuscript analyses the use of digital health technologies as technologies of accountability. The competitive nature of monitoring techniques leads to an ever-higher number of digital consultations, which projects the image of a caring and efficient state. However, the paper also explores the unintended consequences of this politics by display on the provision of healthcare. Even though digital technologies and the managerial form of governance they engender promise to touch people’s lives, they lead to intangible forms of care while leaving untouched pressing structural issues that India’s health sector has been facing for decades.

Intention to use fintech services: An investigation into the moderation effects of quality of internet access and digital skills

This paper aims to investigate the moderating influence of the quality of access to internet and digital skills on the factors that influence the intention to use fintech services among the young working population in India. We use the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine the intention to adopt financial technology in a rapidly technologically transformative Indian landscape. We conducted an empirical investigation on 324 young workers in India using the survey method. The TPB model's relevance in an Indian context is validated. Attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms together accounted for 48.7% of the variation in the intention to use fintech services. The quality of internet access significantly moderated the positive effect of young workers' attitudes on their intention to use fintech. Digital skills significantly moderated the positive effects of attitude and perceived behavioral control on intentions to use fintech services. India is considered a very fast adopter of digital technology. In India, the use of electronic channels in financial service delivery is on the rise. With the wide geographic dispersion and huge population, the quality of internet access and digital skills can influence the intention to use fintech services. There can be vast differences in the behavioral mindset of people in a developing country like India compared to that of a developed one regarding the use and adoption of digital platforms for accessing financial services. Developers and regulators must adopt approaches and policies that consider these behavioral factors. This paper examines the Theory of Planned Behaviour in the context of a rapidly transforming behavioural context in India with the adoption of technology-based financial services. The importance of quality internet access and digital skills as factors moderating the adoption of technology is examined in this paper, unlike many previous studies.

The moderating effects of perceived social worth and organizational virtuousness on the relationship between emotional labor, precarious work, and organizational commitment among ASHA workers in India

Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in India are the subjects of this study, which explores the complex relationships between emotional labor (EL) and unstable work environments and how these relationships affect organizational commitment (OC). The study also looked at how organizational virtuousness (OV) and perceived social value mediated the relationship between precarious work (PW), EL, and OC. This study included a total sample size of N = 467 ASHA personnel from a variety of healthcare settings. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to look at the moderating effects using the Hayes Process Macro. The findings suggest that there are noteworthy negative associations between EL, PW, and the OC of ASHA workers. Nevertheless, OV and perceived social worth (PSW) emerged as significant moderators. More precisely, elevated levels of PSW and OV mitigated the adverse effects of PW and EL on the OC of ASHA workers.

Retaining Chinese Indentured Labour in Interwar British and French Pacific colonies

ABSTRACT British attempts to reform or close down the indentured labour system as it applied to Chinese labourers across the British empire were carried out on an ad hoc basis, one colony at a time. In the southwest Pacific islands indentured labour recruitment was retained into the 1930s and beyond. Between 1920 and 1953 thousands of Chinese workers suffered under penal clauses for labour offences and endured harsh conditions on contracts that often extended beyond five years. This article investigates the means by which colonial authorities in Hong Kong and the southwest Pacific were able to maintain the indentured labour system despite the British Colonial Office preference for abolition. It compares government correspondence, labour contracts and ordinances from Nauru under British-Australian mandate, Western Samoa under New Zealand mandate, and the Anglo-French Condominium of New Hebrides (Vanuatu). It demonstrates that Chinese indentured labourers were retained with only minor changes to their contracts, put in place for the most part so that colonial administrators could avoid national and international censure.

From South Africa to the World: The Political and Legal Legacies of Chinese Indenture in the Transvaal

ABSTRACT This article examines the term ‘new slavery’, short for ‘a new form of slavery’, as used by Liberal British Parliament members and white South African trade unionists in opposition to the recruitment of Chinese indentured labourers to work in the Transvaal gold mines. The recruitment of Chinese indentured labourers emerged following the South Africa War (1899-1902) in response to African ‘native’ labourers’ refusal to return to the mines. This article explores how the Transvaal’s distinct indentured labour system, characterized by coercive features akin to those in the Indian indentured labour system, and further defined by mandatory repatriation, fines for assisting labourers in contract violation and the establishment of a Chinese consulate for fair treatment, set a precedent for global labour programmes. These specific conditions of the Transvaal system influenced the development of subsequent labour initiatives, particularly the Chinese Labour Corps during World War I. The article provides an overview of the overlaps between these programmes and highlights the enduring impact of the Transvaal system on the evolution of global labour practices including modern guest worker programmes.

Chinese Perspectives on Chinese Indentured Labourers during the First World War

ABSTRACT This article explores Chinese perspectives on the indenturing of Chinese labourers during the First World War and Chinese official intervention in the indenture system. In contrast to the Qing government’s reluctance to send people overseas, the Republican government formed in Peking in 1912 believed in integration into the international capitalist system, and that indentured Chinese labourers working abroad would benefit the country and its people. The government sought to regulate indentures to prevent the recruitment of labourers by rogue agents and to establish new standards for the indenturing system. To some extent this arrangement reflected the characteristics of a new system under which the labourer was relatively free. The popular press was the main vehicle through which the Chinese reading public constructed their perceptions of the indenture system. The terrible conditions endured by Chinese labourers in Russia was portrayed in newspapers as a consequence of the fraudulent practices of Chinese recruiting agents. Labourers recruited by the British and French were judged to have received better treatment. The perceptions of Chinese labourers and their families varied, but especially after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, their memories of indenture were influenced by anti-colonial and nationalist perspectives.

Indenture Beyond the ‘Coolie’ Trade: Reinitiating Chinese Indentured Migration to Cuba after the Chinese Commission Report (1874–1920)

ABSTRACT The historiography of Chinese indenture in Cuba is very clear when it comes to its periodization, establishing the start date of the trade in 1847 and the end in 1874. This periodization is based upon the arrival of the first and the last ships carrying Chinese indentured labourers. Thus, studies on the so-called ‘coolie trade’ focus on the period between these dates. What happened after the arrival of the last ship has attracted less attention. The end of the trade, after all, did not coincide with the end of indenture in Cuba, either in legal terms or in practice. By the 1880s there were still Chinese indentured labourers in Cuba who had not finished their contracts. Furthermore, after 1874 there were attempts to restore the trade in Chinese migrants: firstly, in 1877; and later, in 1919. Chinese indenture in Cuba is an excellent case study by which to problematize the meaning of ‘abolition’ and inquire on the nature of ‘indenture’. Using multilingual source material, this article suggests a continuous view of indenture in Cuba beyond the 1874 hallmark, and pinpoints the debt generated at the moment of recruitment to pay for the emigrating costs as the single most important defining mechanism of indenture.