Women can play a pivotal role in the progress and sustainability of the world if they are empowered through education and employment opportunities in Science, technology, innovation and through changing the social stereotypes that restrain them in certain workplaces. In the literature, few recently published studies exist that document the challenges faced by female scientists in their workplaces. The purpose of this study was to understand the challenges and coping strategies faced by female scientists around the world today, in order to contribute to their improved performance. A multi-centre electronic cross-sectional survey across 55 countries was conducted to profile female scientists and to identify the challenges that they experience throughout their career as well as the coping mechanisms that they use to overcome the barriers. A total of 263 female scientists from different countries across the world participated in our study and most participants were from the South East Asian Region. Most female scientists in our study belong to the middle and junior level career category and earning around 1250 USD per month. Most of the scientists reported availability of maternity leave at their workplace but less than a third reported presence of a creche at work. Workplace sexual harassment was reported by 24% of the study population. Work related stress (71.5%) and work life imbalance (46%) are also major challenges faced by female scientists. Self-confidence, dedication and hard work are the most commonly adopted coping strategy. Flexible work timings, woman-friendly management policies, fair appraisal and mentorship appear to reduce the work-related stress and improve work-life balance among female scientists. In conclusion, female scientists face numerous challenges, which can greatly affect both their individual and career growth. Intrinsic (personal) and extrinsic (institutional) factors are important for improving female scientists' wellbeing and productivity.

Stress and depression are common in textile industry employees due to inadequate working conditions and challenging socioeconomic conditions. The objective of the study was to assess depression and mental health among adolescent and young females currently employed in a textile factory located in Tamil Nadu compared with past employees and women who have never been employed. This cross-sectional study included a total of 107 participants in each study group who were interviewed. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were administered to screen participants for depression and mental health. More current employees (16.82%) and past employees (15.88%) suffered from depression severe enough to require treatment compared with never employed girls and young women (2.8%). Of the study participants, 59.8% of current employees, 63.6% of past employees, and 32.7% of never employed women had mental health or behavior problems. In the regression model, history of abuse was significantly associated with depression. Participants who were current employees and reported family debt and a history of abuse were significantly more likely to have mental health or behavior problems. Mental health issues such as depression and behavior problems were more likely among adolescent girls currently employed in textile industries. Further studies into the causes of this phenomenon are needed.

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Previous studies have identified both physical and psychosocial forms of stress among newly married women due to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) access. However, methodologies used to identify stress have relied on surveys and interviews, which have limitations for eliciting situated information regarding stress. Prior public health studies indicate that, together with other qualitative methods, audio diaries provide rich data sets of participants’ everyday practices, and their interactions with their physical and social environment. In this research, our interdisciplinary team collaborated to explore the feasibility of making audio diary recordings from prompts in a rural, Indian context where many women are illiterate. Three pregnant women living in rural Karnataka (India) were trained on the prompts and audio recorders, and were asked to make audio entries over two weeks. Midterm and exit interviews were used to ascertain women’s thoughts and experiences making audio diary entries. Each woman successfully recorded, on average, 27 minutes per week, demonstrating the feasibility of audio diaries in rural India. While the recruitment and training process was labor intensive and required follow-up visits, trust-building between participants and researchers over time facilitated discussions about the contextual and experiential details of making recordings that will improve data collection through this method. We concluded that when used with other qualitative methods, audio diaries offer a unique opportunity to collect participants’ practices, feelings, reflections, and interactions with their physical and social environment in real time.

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Musculoskeletal disorders are common in those employed in the textile industry. The aim of the study is to assess musculoskeletal disorders among adolescent girls who are current employees of textile industries in comparison with the adolescent girls and young women who are past employees of textile industries and adolescent girls who have never been employed in the textile industry. Methodology This is a cross-sectional study. A total of 321 subjects, 107 in each study group were sampled. Standardized nordic questionnaires (SNQ) was used to assess musculoskeletal symptoms. Results More than half of the current employees (67.28%) and past employees (67.28%) reported musculoskeletal pain. Among the never been employed, 18.69% reported musculoskeletal pain. Neck and shoulder were the most common sites of musculoskeletal pain among the current employees (49.5% and 50.5%, respectively) and the past employees (45.8% and 49.5%, respectively). In the regression model, having ever been diagnosed for anemia (AOR 6.57, 95% CI 1.4 to 30.76), working for more than 48 h in a week (AOR 3.37, 95% CI 1.53 to 7.41) and the presence of depression (AOR 6.6, 95% CI 1.48 to 29.36) were significantly associated with the presence of musculoskeletal pain in the study participants. Conclusion Musculoskeletal disorders are a major occupational health problem among the adolescent and young women employees of textile industries. Working hours should be fixed at 48 h per week and anemia and depression should be treated to avert the work related musculoskeletal disorders in the study population.

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