“Women are more and more prone to accidents at work and to musculoskeletal disorders [TMS], to which they are moreover twice as exposed as men. On the other hand, occupational cancers often remain underestimated in women. It was by recalling these results of research carried out on the professional risks specifically encountered by women that Annick Billon (Union centriste), president of the delegation for women’s rights in the Senate, opened the second round table organized within the framework of of an information report on the health of women at work, on January 12.
In the midst of the debate on pension reform, the delegation is looking at this still poorly understood reality: the repercussions of work (or non-work) on women’s health. While accidents at work fell by 27% among men between 2001 and 2019, this rate increased by 42% among women over the same period, according to a study by the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (Anact).
Between ignorance of occupational risks and the repercussions of a disrupted career on their long-term health, women encounter specific difficulties throughout their careers, recalled two researchers from the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) during their this round table.
Undervaluation of cancers
“While they suffer more physical and psychological wear and tear, men are always more exposed to visible dangers”, recalled Emilie Counil in the introduction. This research fellow at INED and associate researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute has focused on “the warning” what constitutes the under-evaluation of cancers in the workplace among women.
Based on a survey conducted over ten years on more than a thousand patients with cancer of the respiratory tract in Seine-Saint-Denis, the researcher notes that a “significant proportion of patients had been exposed, and even multiple-exposed” to one “double combination of biological agents and organic pollutants in activities related to care and cleaning”, where women are more present. Due to the complexity of identifying these sources of exposure, reinforced by a professional career “more choppy”, the researcher observes a “less recognition of women who have sought to obtain recognition of occupational disease”.
Already present in men, “the mechanisms of the invisibilization of the links between cancer and work”, are reinforced “by the lesser inclusion of the types of jobs held by women and women in general, in epidemiological surveys on the links between work and cancer” added Emilie Counil during her hearing.
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