Women's Capacities to Perform Strenuous Work

Abstract

The literature was reviewed in an attempt to determine women's capacity to perform work. Although the review uncovered a relatively small amount of work devoted to this topic, the published studies suggest that women have both the physiological capacity to perform hard work and theen- durance to complete a full day of hard work. However, the studies also suggest that women have limited capabilities to perform tasks requiring lifting, pushing, and pulling. In studies involving climbing and gripping, occupational comparisons were not available. On anthropometric measures the data will not be comparable with work data until occupational information is developed.