EFFECT OF INDOOR CONDITION OF BANGLADESH FACTORY TO WORKERS HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The economic growth of Bangladesh depends very much on the garments industries. In Bangladesh, the garments industries contribute directly to the economic growth at about 6 percent of national economic growth rate. A huge number of factories are developed and scattered around Bangladesh. Most of the factories are clustered around the capital city Dhaka and invite thousands of rural inhabitants in search of a job in the city and hoping to lead better life. Today, Bangladesh already confirmed her position as a world-leading clothing exporter. The total workers in these garment industries are around 3.6 million out of 150 million total population. These factories manufacture different types of readymade garments products and export those products to many different countries around the world. However, a good number of factories are not well designed in term of their indoor conditions and which have direct influence in terms of workers' health and wellbeing. The poor indoor conditions may directly affect the employees’ health where they can suffer from various illnesses over prolong durations. This study is aimed at finding out the indoor conditions that has the direct influence towards health and wellbeing of workers at the selected garment factories. For the purpose of this study,14 factories at 6 different locations were selected. A field study was held to assess workers' health and wellbeing while working at the selected garment factories in Bangladesh. During the field study, the questionnaire survey was conducted among the random sample of 405 workers. The workers answered and provided the information about their factory current indoor conditions. From the questionnaire, it is found working environment caused certain illnesses and affected the workers' behavior while they are working at factories. The findings of this research will help introduce measure and guideline to the factory owners so that they can take significant steps to upgrade their management system to improve and provide good indoor conditions for their workers and in term of business wise increase the production margin.