The difficulties of reconciling work life and private life
Various aspects emerge from the Dossier related to the world of women's work, which are strongly influenced by triple role of wife, mother and worker. For example, the difficulties of reconciling work life and private life represent one source of risk for the majority of workers. The data shows that women are more subject to accidents at work because they are more involved in reconciling professional and private life, which involves frequent travel And shorter recovery times from tiredness. This may have repercussions on mental healthcausing stress and increasing the chances of suffering an injury.
Furthermore, the health and social professions, which are mostly occupied by women, are becoming increasingly dangerous due to violence and aggression in the workplace. Furthermore, in recent years theaging of the workforce led to an increase in accidents among women over 50 years of age.
Some comforting news is that, unlike 2022, in which workplace accidents among women had recorded a strong increase (+40.5%) compared to the previous year, mainly influenced by the increase in work-related accidents and in particular those caused by Covid-19, a reduction was recorded in 2023 of the phenomenon, with a 28% decrease in reported female injuries.
Gender statistics do not simply disaggregate data on the basis of sex, but take into account issues that affect the situation of women and men differently, such as the division of roles, access to material and cultural resources, access to services and factors of social vulnerability.
INAIL Women's Dossier 2024: injury reports reduced in 2023
The first data for 2023 shows a clear reduction in complaints of injuries compared to 2022. In the period January-December 2023, overall injury reports decreased by 16.1%, with a 19.2% decrease in cases occurring at work and an increase of 4.7% of ongoing cases. The female component contributed the most to this decrease, recording a decrease of 27.6%, while the male component recorded a decrease of 8.1%. This decline is mainly due to the significant decline in infections reported in 2023, characterized since the beginning of the pandemic by a greater female incidence (Health and social assistance, the first of the sectors most at risk of professional contagion, has a prevalence of women among those employed).
For a more accurate and detailed comparison, you will need to refer to Annual report of the Institutewhich will provide the annual open data updated to 30 April 2024 for the five-year period 2019-2023.
From the point of view geographical, in 2022, women's injury reports increased by 40.4% compared to the previous year, due to professional Covid-19 infections spread throughout the country. The majority of female injuries are concentrated in the North (60.1%), followed by the Center (20.3%) and the South (19.6%).
Causes of injury for women
In the five-year period 2018-2022, taking into consideration only the cases that occurred at work and positively ascertained by INAIL, it is observed that body movements under physical effort are the first cause of accidents for men (23.3% of coded cases), while for women almost a third (32.9%) of accidents are due to “overflow, spillage, vaporization”which also includes injuries caused by Covid-19.
There second cause of injuries for women are body movements under physical effort (19.2%), followed by slipping or tripping resulting in a person falling (17.3%).
There most affected age group from injuries in 2022 is between 50 and 54 years old, with 43,105 reports, which represents approximately 15.0% of all female injuries. Within this age group, injuries to women constitute over 46% of the total for both genders.
Commuting accidents and pathologies
The dossier highlights the gender differences in accidents and occupational diseases, with women being more affected by commuting accidents, violence against women in the workplace and Covid-19 accidents. These differences can be attributed to the different social roles, workloads and occupational sectors in which women are more present.
According to the data presented by INAIL, theincidence of mental disorders it is higher in women than in men. Analyzing the number of female complaints for a specific pathology compared to the total number of complaints for the same pathology, it can be observed that mental and behavioral disorders and skin diseases are the pathologies with the highest percentage of female complaints, 52% respectively and 40%.