Night shifts for women

Night shifts for women have been on discussion for a considerable time in India. In principle, women have been prohibited to work at night since The Factories Act, 1948. Yet, the issue is not devoid of controversy that at present got only reinforced by the realities of Indian export-oriented economy. Time-zones factor and pressure from the customers to keep up with fierce competition and, thus, provide for non-stop production, delivery and availability of the goods are key driving factors in the export-oriented industries. These sectors in India tend to be labour intensive and heavily really on women workforce. For example, in fisheries and textiles, where women employees have historically constituted a significant proportion or workforce, night shifts are part and parcel of the production process. Moreover, with the soaring growth of IT and IT enabled services, mostly functioning during the night hours, the discussion of night shifts for women has come forward again as one cannot apply the blind eye to 3.2 lakhs women currently employed in IT-ITES sector.

In March 2005 an amendment in the Factories Act came into force to allow women employees in textiles and IT to work late-night shifts with employers providing adequate safeguards at workplace and while commuting. Yet, in September, 2005 Haryana government sent notices to Gurgaon-based call centres asking them not to allow women employees at night shifts on the plea that call centres are not IT, but ITES (IT enabled service) companies and therefore 2000’s exemptions do not apply to them.

Interestingly, the way the issue of night shifts for women is currently approached illustrates how women’s rights are often handled: “the system” bans or “the system” allows. Clearly, prohibition of night work for women is discriminatory in a number of ways:

o It strengthens occupational segregation by preventing women from entering the industries where night work is an essential practice.
o It increases wage gap by eliminating women’s access to higher paid night work hours.
o It impedes women’s career development as being able to work extended working hours (including night shifts) is seen by employers as an important indicator of work commitment.

Yet, if women are denied access to night work it does not mean that simply by abolishing the ban one can establish gender quality at workplace. One should carefully attend the reasons behind the discriminatory prohibition. There is a number of well-justified arguments that refer to the detrimental effects of night work on women’s reproductive health. Yet, health hazards of night shifts are common for both genders. However, there is a whole range of social factors specific to women working at night:

o family’s objections: women are expected to be at home at night performing the domestic chores;
o lack of infrastructure for family care: while during the day woman can bring her small children to the nursery and rely on house helper, in the night she does not have a opportunity to seek this assistance;
o safe commuting to the workplace: lack of transportation and necessity to commute in naturally more insecure time of the day further question night work safety.

In the light of these arguments the ban on night work for women was enforced to protect women from hazards of night shifts that, in the opinion of the lawmakers, was best ensured by making women safely stay at home at night.

Therefore, by simply allowing night shifts for women one does not solve the problem of gender-equal labour participation. Unless the night work regulations address the lack of infrastructure for family care available in the nights, special heath provisions and arrangement on safe commuting to/from the workplace one cannot be sure that allowing night shifts for women does justice for gender quality.