Occupational Disease among Women Employees in Beauty Service Business in Chennai

Growth of beauty industry had increased dramatically in moder era. Appreciation to beauty is rapidly increasing with modern life style. Occupational health issues among the beauty parlor service providers is also increasing rapidly. Employees engaged in beauty parlors were exposed to various types of occupational health problems like respiratory infections, musculoskeletal disorder, back pain, dermatitis, allergic, joint pain, skin infections. The study aims to identify the occupational health issues among women employees in beauty parlors and to analyse the impact of health issues in work environment in beauty parlors. Data is collected from 350 beauty service providers from Chennai city by questionnaire methods and by using factor analysis as statistical tools. INTRODUCTION : Growth of beauty industry had increased dramatically in moder era. Appreciation to beauty is rapidly increasing with modern life style. Occupational health issues among the beauty parlor service providers is also increasing rapidly. Employees engaged in beauty parlors were exposed to various types of occupational health problems like respiratory infections, musculoskeletal disorder, back pain, dermatitis, allergic, joint pain, skin infections etc (Mandiracioglu et.al., 2009). According to World Health Organizations (WHO, 1994) health and work places are important issues which strongly relate to the health and well-being of the workers. The health problems can be controlled and avoided by improving the working practices and conditions. Effective control measures can by applied to take appropriate control measures. Objectives of the study: 1. To identify the occupational health issues among women employees in beauty parlors 2. To analyse the impact of health issues in work environment in beauty parlors. METHODOLOGY Period of study The data and information is collected from the respondents pertains to October 2013 to December 2013. Sources of data Reviews from the various literatures, helped the researcher to identify different variables and they are complied in the form the questionnaire. By using questionnaire as a tool for data collection primary data was collected from the employees of beauty salons and secondary data from journals, research papers, research reports, conference proceedings, magazines, newspapers and websites. Selection of the study area In the world of fashion, beauty and career counseling many are women with their own labels. As per the demographic profile of India (2012) women are in age group between 2554 is about 235,042,251. The population of Chennai is 5,00,8763 as per July 2012 statistical data consisting of 2,544,380 females. Chennai being a metropolitan city the number of working women is high when compared with other places in Tamilnadu. Further, the number of women in higher education institutions is going up, which resulted in increased demand for such personalized services. Considering the volume of business for beauty salons Chennai city has been purposively selected for the present study. Sampling procedure and sample size determinations It is estimated that nearly 4500 beauty parlors are operated in Chennai city and by adapting random sampling technique the data is collected from women employees of beauty salon business. A structured questionnaire was distributed to 500 women employees of beauty salon and out that 350 filled in questionnaire were found to be valid. The sample size for the present study is determined by using the following formula: S = X NP(1− P) ÷ d 2 (N −1) + X P(1− P) S = Required sample size. X2 = The table value of chi-square for 1 degree of freedom at the desired confidence level (3.841). N = The population size (N=4500) P = The population proportion (assumed to be .50 since this would provide the maximum sample size). d = The degree of accuracy expressed as a proportion (0.05). Hence, the sample size for the present study is 350 women employees of beauty salons in Chennai. Instrument for Data collection The pilot study was carried out with 35 respondents and reliability was checked using Cronbach alpha for different statements. Statements which seemed to be not useful for study and then found overlapping and variables that were not significantly contributing to the improvement of the cronbrach alpha too were removed. Table : 1Reliability statistics Cronbach's Alpha No. of Items .776 16 M.Chitra/J. Pharm. Sci. & Res. Vol. 7(5), 2015, 256-259