Characteristics of work, life and health analyzed in a survey of a hundred thousand employees of small companies and self-employed persons

Abstract

A study of business performance, life and health in small businesses by means of checklist consisting of 22 items and 66 subitems was done by All Commercial Union Mutual Aids Association from September through November, 1995. We analyzed 8 items related to "health." One representative person in each enterprise answered the questionnaire anonymously. The total number of responders was 97,527. Women comprized 18% of those study. 55% of responders were working in companies with only one or two employees. Compared to the government statistics, this study population was comparable to other industrial divisions with the exception of the engineering and construction industry which was three times as large and the wholesale and retail industry which was one-fourth the size. Workers with longer working hours a day reported lesser amounts of sleep. Those workers complained of uneasiness about their health and tended to work on holidays. They also carried their exhaustion over to the next day and did not have regular health examinations. The larger the decrease in sales compared with the previous year, the more the workers showed anxiety about their health and went to the hospital regularly. There was a strong correlation between the percentage of workers who answered "yes" for long working hours and "yes" percentage for a large decrease in sales. An often heard response was, "A doctor tells you to take a rest, but it's impossible to do so because of the job requirements." Among those who responded, there was a large group who were presently hospitalized.