The Status of Female Workers Using Restrooms at Work and Effects on Health (2021)

Why have women workers’ restrooms not been seen as a problem?

Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health

Background

Restroom use at work is not only a matter of dignity but also directly related to health. In addition, for women workers, the restroom is often an uncomfortable space that can raise security concerns. Nevertheless, restroom use is often reduced to a personnel issue and is not considered to be part of a healthy working environment. As a result, restroom use is often trivialized and problems are resolved through grievance procedures. Recently, problems related to women workers using the restroom have emerged in a variety of industries including construction, services, and manufacturing, among others.

There are 130,000 women workers in the construction industry in Korea, which accounts for 10% of the total workforce. However, problems surrounding restroom use among women workers have never been taken seriously. The restroom issue is also serious in the service industry where the proportion of women workers is high. According to a 2018 research study of working conditions and health effects in sales workers of department stores and duty-free shops, 60% of workers experienced not going to the restroom when they needed to. These workers experienced many disorders such as cystitis and musculoskeletal disorders. In fact, the incidence of cystitis was three times higher than normal. To complicate matters further, the regular workers’ union refused the transition of irregular workers to regular workers simply due to the lack of sufficient restrooms for female workers. The expectation was that the union would demand more restrooms for women workers, but instead they allowed poor restroom conditions so as not to accept promotion of irregular workers to regular workers.

An interviewee for this study made this drawing of how she has to cross a roadway to go to the restroom in another building near her workplace.

Analyzing the legal system

Our analysis of the existing legal system found that there is no law that concretely regulates restrooms in workplaces. However, in 2019, the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) created a “Guide to Installing and Maintaining the Facilities of Washing and Showers” after the women’s committee of the Korean Construction Workers’ Union pushed the issue. Although it is a guideline and not a forceful law, KOSHA (which is part of the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor) developed the guideline so it can be used for inspection and instructions for changes and improvements. The guideline suggests a standard divided into general workplaces and outdoor workplaces and covers facilities to wash the face and body; facilities to change clothes and wash them; and restrooms. However, it does not seem to consider the issues surrounding the use of restrooms by women workers. Nevertheless, it can at least serve as a concrete way to regulate restrooms at workplaces by using the guideline to restrain restroom equipment that threatens workers’ health and forbids rules to make restrooms available only for clients. Korea’s Industrial Safety and Health Law does not clearly obligate employers to install or maintain restrooms. However, restrooms can be guaranteed by comprehensive rules to make safe and clean working conditions for workers’ health, because restrooms are mandatory facilities for a safe and healthy working environment.

Survey of restroom situations

A Survey was performed to investigate actual workplace situations regarding restrooms and to understand the health issues of women workers related to their use. The survey also tried to determine the relevance of restrooms to working conditions.

Approximately 900 workers (889) from 14 industrial labor unions answered the questionnaire. Responses were divided into two groups: regular workplaces and workplaces involving visiting labor. Conditions of work intensity were analyzed using the Borg scale which varies from level 6 (easy) to a maximum level of 20, which is defined as a maximal level of exertion. The average Borg scale level of the regular workplaces group was 12.69 while the average Borg scale level of the visiting labor group was 14.11 which is very arduous.¹The most important reason for increasing the work intensity of workers in regular workplaces was worker insufficiency, followed by working hours and job insecurity. The most important reason for increasing the work intensity in visiting labor workplaces was pressure for performance, followed by working hours and job insecurity.

The survey revealed varied accessibility to restrooms. For example, 13% of the respondents said that there is no restroom one or two minutes away from their working place. Another 13% noted that they could not use the restroom in one or two minutes without waiting. These results indicate that at least 26 workers out of 100 were working in an environment with insufficient restrooms.

Accessibility includes not only the distance to the restroom but also the possibility that workers can go to restrooms freely when they want to during the working hours. For example, 14% of the regular workplaces group answered that they could not go to restrooms when they wanted to. The most common reasons were: no time; no spare workers; and the restrooms were too far away or did not exist nearby. These responses indicate an insufficiency of workers so that as work intensity increased, they felt that they had no time to go to the restroom. In the visiting labor group, 58% of the workers answered that they could not go to the restroom when they wanted to. Major reasons were having no restroom nearby and poor facilities with sanitary problems.

A significant number of workers reported health issues associated with the lack of restroom access. For example, 48% of the respondents reported health issues but these problems were considered to be personal issues, not workplace environment issues. Worker strategies to avoid restroom use included restricting water (37%) and food intake (30%). Psychological problems related to restroom use were reported by 59% of the workers. The most common psychological problems were anxiety (65%), followed by lowered confidence and self-esteem (27%), and depression (21%). Most of the workers (91%) who answered that using restrooms was difficult reported psychological problems indicating that accessibility to restrooms affected workers’ psychological and emotional condition. Using restrooms also affected the prevalence of diseases. Compared to the control group, the group who reported difficulty in using the restroom showed a statistically significantly higher prevalence rate of most diseases such as cystitis and chronic constipation. There was also an increased prevalence of kidney infections (pyelonephritis) but the increase was not statistically significant. The results illustrate that restroom availability can impact health issues and the prevalence of diseases.

Analyzing interviews

While surveying and interviewing workers, we focused on why restroom issues had not been considered to be a problem even though women workers in diverse jobs and ages were generally experiencing the problem. There were many reasons why women workers could not go to restrooms. The reasons can be grouped as follows: 1. workplaces where there was no restroom in the workplace or the restroom did not have proper size, facilities, sanitation and safety; 2. workplaces where there was no restroom at all – either inside or outside of the workplace; or 3. time is not provided to go the restroom because of severe work intensity and other reasons. These responses raise concerns about why time to go to the restroom is not considered in assignment of working hours; why break time is not available including the time to go to the restroom and for resting; and why the restroom is not prepared in a sanitary and safe manner for workers.

The issues of workplace restroom use goes beyond facility maintenance to considerations of worker health impacted by working hours, work intensity, work spaces and break time. Restroom use reflects fundamental issues regarding worker autonomy and control of their own bodies.

Time is a key component in restroom use. In working conditions with staff insufficiency, workers do not have time to use the restroom and some do not even have a proper break time that would allow restroom use. In such situations, workers just have to control their bodies including restriction of water or food intake. Restroom use problems are more serious in stores maintained by just one worker because there were no other workers to replace them. In situations where workers meet people or visit clients’ homes, workers often restrain from going to the restroom because they are afraid of making a negative impression. In some cases, break times are too short and result in long waiting lines for the restroom. Guaranteeing enough rest time is closely related to restroom use problems.

Often, spaces inside the workplace including the restroom are neither designed nor maintained by considering workers’ needs. Our survey indicated that outdoor workplaces often did not have restrooms and general workplaces did not have enough toilets or their restrooms were too far away. Inequality inside workplaces weakened accessibility to the restroom. Even though the workers work at the same place, facilities and environments were totally different according to different employment of main contractors and subcontractors, social class, and gender. In those working environments, restriction of restroom use caused various health problems. The most common disease was cystitis, but other serious diseases such as kidney infections (pyelonephritis) and various symptoms such as blood in the urine were reported.

Conclusion and recommendations

Workers reported that work intensity was the main reason why women could not go to the restroom. Therefore, in order to solve the restroom issue of women workers, overall work intensity needs to be lowered and the resting time during work time needs to be elevated. In addition, social recognition of this issue is urgently needed. Participants in this research answered that they had not shared their illnesses of the urinary system or genital organs with their coworkers. This reflects the reality that restroom issues of women workers have never been effectively dealt with socially or publicly. Women workers’ health issues need to be discussed as an issue of workers and as an important health issue. This approach needs to go together with efforts to avoid inequality in workplaces.

Policies related to restroom accessibility are needed. Spacious equipment in a sanitary and safe environment needs to be provided through obligations on employers regarding installing and maintaining the restroom. Labor unions have an important role to reveal women workers’ working situations regarding restroom use and advocate for improvements. This could be facilitated by increasing the number of women among labor union leaders and including regular education on women workers’ health rights. All workplaces should be improved to provide for a safe and healthy work environment from a gender perspective.

1. In this research, 12 is between ‘somewhat hard’ and ‘hard’, 14 is between ‘hard’ and ‘quite hard’. [↩]