Gender and work in ergonomics: recent trends

Abstract

Since the establishment of the Gender and Work Technical Committee (TC) of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA) in 2006, many researchers have addressed the role of sex and gender in ergonomics, producing a great deal of new information. This special issue aims to present new ways of viewing women’s work and gender differences in work-related injury risks in an era of rapidly changing labour market configurations. It offers innovative methods for integrating sex and gender into ergonomic analysis and for designing work environments. It shares reflections on the intersection of vulnerabilities according to certain identity markers. Finally, it contributes to establishing milestones standards of practice so that the consideration of sex and gender can be more systematically modelled in ergonomics research and interventions, for example, in training ergonomists or in knowledge transfer initiatives.

Practitioner summary: This editorial article provides an overview of the background and the content of the Special Issue ‘Gender and Work in Ergonomics: Recent trends’.

Keywords:

• Ergonomics
• sex and gender integration
• sex and gender based analysis
• knowledge transfer
• training future ergonomists

Acknowledgements

We thank Jena Webb for translating this introduction and for her help and advice on the entire issue. We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Connexion Funds (#611-2020-0240) for a grant that allowed several authors to present their work, as well as grants from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (#153464) to the GESTE research team and from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et cultures (# 2021-SE3-284320) to the SAGE research team that supported fruitful discussions and interchanges among the authors. We are grateful to the organising committee of the 2021 congress of the International Ergonomics Association for their help in organising our symposia, with special thanks to Nancy Black.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The organisation of the 2021 IEA symposia on Gender & Work and the editorial management of this special issue was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Connexion Funds (#611-2020-0240)