Empowerment as a pre-requisite to managing and influencing health in the workplace: the sexual and reproductive health needs of factory women migrant workers in Malaysia

Article

Miles, L., Freeman, T., Wan Teng, L., Mat-Yasin, S. and Ying, K. 2022. Empowerment as a pre-requisite to managing and influencing health in the workplace: the sexual and reproductive health needs of factory women migrant workers in Malaysia. Economic and Industrial Democracy. 43 (4), pp. 1676-1698. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831x211024725
TypeArticle
TitleEmpowerment as a pre-requisite to managing and influencing health in the workplace: the sexual and reproductive health needs of factory women migrant workers in Malaysia
AuthorsMiles, L., Freeman, T., Wan Teng, L., Mat-Yasin, S. and Ying, K.
Abstract

Malaysia is a major importer of migrant labour within the ASEAN, and migration has adverse implications for the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of women migrant workers. Given the centrality of the workplace to the lives of such women, we report a qualitative analysis of interview data with women migrant workers (n=14) and wider stakeholders (n=10) and consider the extent to which they are able to effect change in workplace SRH policy and practice. Informed by Rowlands’ typology of power and model of empowerment, our analysis considers the extent to which normative expectations of process and collective mobilisation upon which feminist empowerment models are predicated operate in such contexts and discuss the implications of our findings for research to advance workplace democracy.

KeywordsEmpowerment; factory women; migrant workers ; Malaysia; sexual and reproductive health
PublisherSAGE Publications
JournalEconomic and Industrial Democracy
ISSN0143-831X
Electronic1461-7099
Publication dates
Online30 Jun 2021
PrintNov 2022
Publication process dates
Deposited21 May 2021
Accepted21 May 2021
Output statusPublished
Publisher's version
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Open
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Restricted
Copyright Statement

© The Author(s) 2021.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831x211024725
Web of Science identifierWOS:000670739800001
LanguageEnglish
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