Smoking addiction among young women working at night at International call centres in India

Abstract

Background Indian women are actively involved in occupations which were regarded as a taboo such as night work. Working at night for international call centres is a significant step in moving ahead of patriarchal control over women´s mobility in India. The job brings about lifestyle changes among employees such as late night partying, smoking, and boozing. The women employees are mainly fresh graduates. The study brings about the prevalence and smoking behaviour among these young women employees. Methods The study is based on primary data collected from 203 women employee of international call centres employees in Mumbai. The study uses appropriate bi-variate and multivariate techniques to bring about the smoking behaviour among the women. Results Thirty percent women smoked cigarettes and the mean duration of smoking was 2.98 years. The duration of smoking varied from less than 2 years (35%), 2-5 years (50%) and 5 years or more (15%). The reasons for smoking initiation were to beat work stress (38%), style statement (30 %), peer pressure (27%) and to remain awake at night (10%). Though 87% women were aware of the health impacts of smoking they continued smoking as it acted as stress buster (50 percent), addicted to smoking (25 percent), to remain awake at night (17 percent) and it gave a sense of freedom (8%). The mean number of cigarettes smoked per day was 2.9. The number of cigarettes smoked per day varied from 1-2 (60%), 3-5 (30%) and greater than 5(10%). Conclusions Smoking among the young women is a matter of grave concern as night work, and job-related stress takes a toll on their health and smoking further affects their health. Interestingly most of the women being aware of the ill effects continued smoking. Organisations should take efforts to provide proper counselling to enlighten the women on the ill effects of smoking.

Keywords

• WCTOH